I find the brain to be incredibly fascinating, as many others do as well. I took a comparative vertebrate anatomy course last semester, and we touched on the brain. Quite honestly, I think the school should have a course solely dedicated to the brain, there is so much to be learned about the anatomy of the brain, and should almost be a prerequisite for neuroscience courses. In the anatomy course, we looked at multiple vertebrates’ brains. If you look at the brain of a lamprey compared to a frog compared to a crocodile compared to a human, you can see basically the same elements of the brain, however, they just become more developed and more complex and enlarged as you move from simple to complex vertebrates. If we look at a lamprey, the animal does not need to process as much as a human does. They are filter feeders and have eyes, however, they do not have a complex system. Therefore, their brains are small, they do not have a large cerebrum, and the cerebellum is almost unnoticeable because they do not need to process and control a complex motor system.
I do find that the localization theory could definitely have legitimacy, because if you also look at the cerebral hemispheres of vertebrates, the location and size and shape somewhat relates to the animals’ bodies. In a reptile, the two hemispheres are extended due to their long jaw, while in sharks, the two hemispheres are thicker, but not long. I also do not know nearly enough about the actual brain, but we are still alive today, because evolution has made us efficient and intelligent. In that way, how are brain processes is the most evolved, so if one part of the brain functions more than others related to a certain action, that could make sense. When our brain receives a signal, the signal is brought together after processing in the hemispheres in order to produce a response, so while one hemisphere may have a larger part in speaking, that does not automatically mean the other hemisphere does nothing.
In the other reading, I recall learning about naturalist and conventionalist ways of thinking about words and meaning. I find it hard to follow the naturalist way, because while it may be natural to me to think the natural word for dog is dog, dog does not actually describe the animal at all. I think it relates to colorblindness as well, because while I see green as green, my friend sees a brown color, but because people say the grass is green, he sees the grass as green.
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