[ajani]

> It's mostly machine learned from the environment and other humans. We call this child development.

Yes, exactly. The software lies in humanity collectively. Not inside us, but in between us.

Which is why it cannot lie entirely in the brain. At least not entirely in one brain.

A new node born into the network, learns the network. Individual nodes perish, and new ones replace them. But the network doesn't go down. Or it hasn't yet.

Much of conscious experience is the network. Isolation is painful because it deregulates the connection to the network.

But even on the "hardware" side, there must be so many kinds of developments that must occur simultaneously. Some of it is as you say, environment based child development. Others that we may not quite be aware of, say patterns of neural firing, or growth patterns. Such developments probably get passed on in shape (DNA or X) to the next generation.