10% of brain = 100% stupid

[Hammerhead]

Then we ascend into energy beings. But not the neutral, peaceful, keep the balance kind. The kind that teleports around the galaxy zapping things.

And "mentalist" powers are caused by dishonesty and gullibility, nothing more. I mean, I suppose some kind of psychic power is possible, but nothing has ever been confirmed by any scientific experiment.

 

[Fast Learner]

Here's how you can know that our brains are pretty close to 100% used: the brain is a massive energy drain, burning calories like mad, and evolution simply doesn't allow for that kind of waste over a long period of time. If we only used 10% of our energy-sucking brains, humans would have soon* evolved brains that are 10% of their current size. If we weren't using it and it was that costly, we would have died out.

*where "soon" = over the course of human evolution

 

[Sir Brennen]

We are using more than 100% of our brain in the modern age, as many people use devices on a daily basis for intelligence amplification. That cell phone you've got with all those numbers, addresses, birthdays, meeting reminders... it's your brain's external memory, holding information which many people use to have to keep in their head, usually rather inefficiently, or written down on paper (writing being a form of intelligence amplification itself), also less efficient than most modern electronic methods.

Besides the obvious enhancement to number crunching of complex formulas, the sheer amount of information available to the average person who sits down in front of a computer is staggering, and again, the quick access to that information starts to mirror our own biological information retrieval processes more and more, compared to older methods of researching a library, or accessing the memory of other humans through speech processes.

As these information retrieval/organizing/computing devices become more portable, personal and powerful, they become increasingly integrated into our daily routines and habits, our thought processes. They become part of our way of thinking, until there's not much difference between making a decision based on recalling a fact from our neurological memory or our netbook.

When we finally get the directly interfacing iBrain (tm), the process will be complete and there will no longer be any real difference between biological and manufactured electronic memory and information processing. Our brains will be have hitched a ride on Moore's Law and set to start increasing in power exponentially.

All hail the coming Technological Singularity!

 

[TwinBahamut]

Since no one has actually said it in this thread yet...

Using 100% of your brain at once is called a grand mal seizure. It is a bad thing, not some kind of gateway to psychic powers or super-intelligence. After all, using 100% of your brain means that every neural pathway in your brain is firing, even those that control all of your muscles, vision, endocrine system, etc. It means your brain is churning out white noise rather than anything coherent.

It is something akin to why it is a bad thing for a full orchestra to have every musician and instrument to blare out at full volume using every possible note and key imaginable all at once.

 

[Kill Zone]

If you're a sci-fi fan, you've probably heard or read this several times by now: Average human beings only use about 10% of their brains. Heck, odds are you've probably heard it even if you're not a sci-fi fan, since this idea seems to have sunk into mainstream consciousness, at least in America. But it seems to come up most often in science fiction, when a writer wants to come up with a reason why a certain character has superhuman intelligence or mental powers or whatever. It's easy! He just uses more of his brain than everyone else.

There's just one problem - that 10% figure is complete and utter BS.

We humans use ALL of our brains. Maybe not at every single moment, but over the course of a typical day, an average human will use all or almost all of his or her brain. See here for more.

I don't know how this idea got started, but it annoys me every time I see it. Especially since just a little research is all it takes to show someone it's false. I guess none of these science fiction writers have ever heard of an FMRI.

The most recent place this cropped up was in the Iron Man comic, where it was revealed that Tony Stark uses fully 72% of his brain! Wow. Who knew that one of the smartest people in the Marvel Universe was actually horribly brain damaged?

Sheesh.

I respectfully disagree.

 

[rowport]

...if brain size determined intelligence, sperm whales would be our lords and masters.

You mean they are not??? Oh, wow-- I guess I get to stop listening to the briny voices in my head. Whew.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I respectfully disagree.

With what?

 

[Kill Zone]

With what?

With the sentiment that we use more than 10% of our brain on a daily basis.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

With the sentiment that we use more than 10% of our brain on a daily basis.

It is not a "sentiment".

But to be clear, the 10% myth the OP posted about postulated that the average human's brain had 10% of the brain lying fallow, unused. This has never been proven. We have not found a part of the brain that does nothing for a person, much less 90% that does nothing. Strangely, it is sentiment that holds to the opposite . . . respectfully.

The eminent Richard Feynman called it cargo cult science.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Suresh has a brain?