question for the smart ones

[Sir Key]

why do humans have such a big brain when they use up only around 10% of it? i mean why would evolution develop something we don't even use? no believer stuff please because i don't believe in it...

[Kirby]

If we didn't have a huge brain, we would have a small head. And having a small head would really make us look like jackasses. And nothing is stopping you from using more than 10% of your brain

[shnord]

You are using 100% of your brain! The all story about that we use 10-3% of our brains started just because all those psychic wannabes wanted us to belive we all can use psychic powers (Im not saying that people dont have psychic powers, maybe we do have) so we will pay them money to "predict our future" and all that crap.

[Chrono Archangel]

Originally Posted by shnord

You are using 100% of your brain! The all story about that we use 10-3% of our brains started just because all those psychic wannabes wanted us to belive we all can use psychic powers (Im not saying that people dont have psychic powers, maybe we do have) so we will pay them money to "predict our future" and all that crap.

just to add to this, i beleive we dont use 100% percent of our brain. some areas dont do anything IIRC. but the 10% thing isnt real. we use more then that percentage of our brain

[Player-X]

most of the brain is busy 24/7 making sure you don't suddenly die for no apperent reason,the rest is in use for processing sensory information and thought.

[_E_]

I dont believe we are using 100% of our brain, nor even 10%,..i think it depends on the level of concentration and quick thinking, which varies between one person and the other. You might wanna check this page for an easy reference, although I personally disagree with the evolution part, but thats just me
http://www.brainconnection.com/topic...=fa/brain-myth

Yours,
-Elly

[Tori-Yama]

wasn't the 10% referring to the muscle power (physical strength)?

[Proto]

Boltzmann gave out a link in my previous AI discussion... it was on one of the last pages IIRC.... i would search it now but i have class in 5 mins, i will edit this when im back

[Kabuto]

This is what I learn from my neuropsychology classes:
The origin of this idea came from an experiment with rats where they take of parts of the brain to see how much was needed to life the results: 30%, but the rats didn’t learn new things and had serious problem solving deficiencies.

At a biological level the brain uses a binary system to communicate the cells, an state 100% on would make a short circuit and you will became insane.

If we talk about "processing" capacity is not possible to have a standard measure of operations, the intelligence is variable and depends of genetics and environmental variables to reach it’s potential, not every one has the same predispositions to certain types of intelligences and not the same environmental stimulus to develop them.

Our bigger brain allows us to have selfconscious, planning and abstract reasoning, in the nature what is not used tend to be disappear

[Alexander06]

Is it proven that your brain operating at 100% would make you go insane? The 10% theory is both true and false. Propotionally, we use all of our brain. where 10% comes into play, is to the efficency that it is used. our brain is the information hub of our body. it sends orders out to every other cell, organ, limb, ect. us only using it at 10% means our imput (ex: the time it takes pain to register) and output (reflexes) are slower that if it was at 100%. Also it is harder for us to grasp certain mental subjects. Ever had to cram for a test but couldn't seem to remember it all? If our brain was working at 100, 75, even 50%, our memory would extend farther. therefore allowing more room for information. To put it simply, think of our brain as a computer in bad need of an up-grade. ^.^'
Now these are just theories of an anal retentive high school student. (hey, I did take a psychology course tho!)
Also, did you know, Women use more of there brain than men?! 11%! no wonder "guys are idiots".

[Clements]

Using 10% of the Brain is BS, any Biologist will tell you that.

We use it all, but not all simultaneously because the brain is 'divided' up into different regions that have different functions. Why would you want to use 100%? You'd have to do several things at once to do it, like eat, read, run, talk etc. all at the same time. That way all of the regions would be used. The regions often work together when doing certain tasks. There is even a region of the brain that is used to remember faces, and if it is damaged you can't remember any faces no matter how hard you try.

The misconception here is that stupid people just assume that the Brain purpose is just to think, and that we think using just 10%. This is laughably wrong, since we use our brain to move and other stuff as well, and these regions aren't set aside for thinking.

[Kabuto]

Some hallucination states and perception disorder caused by drugs are related with a permanent arousal (on) state of certain parts of the brain, so If your entire brain is used all time with 100% of cells on two things could happen:
1. The information is not transmitted: as a binary system you transmit 1 (on) or 0 (off) messages between cells, if all cells transmit 1 all the time during too much time the cells will began to mix the information and your interpretation of the external and internal stimuli would be chaotic.
2. Your brain cells need to rest, even for milliseconds in the alternate state of on-off, too much excitation will kill them.
3. Forget it’s a way to clean our brain files, the erase what is not used or significant to us. Sadly we have different opinions about what is important, but the brain is always optimising and cleaning space.

[Takmadeus]

Well hybrid, you got it all wrong....

we do use 10% of our brain capacity (actually is more like a 30%) but in thinking, meaning we use that capacity in our everyday thoughts and all the things we thinnk our brains work for.... but the other part is used all the time, to control your body..... our body is way too complex, and even if we tried to recreate its controlling functions (or even simulate them) using our current technology, we would have to spend an eternity..... we could say that our body and our brain are perfect machines..... too bad that most people don't want to learn from it...... many engineering and informatic knowledge could be learned from our bodies....

[Sir Key]

wow one question and so many answers...
there's another thing i've heard once but not sure about...
there are more synapsis in a second in our brain than atoms in the universe...
is that true?

[Kabuto]

I think maybe not, our sinapsis always will have a determinated number, but we din´t know the size of the universe and think about it as infinite. So infinite is a bigger than finite

[Demigod]

I agree with [Clements]. I do believe we're using all of our brain, just not at the same time and not all for the same purpose. It's like living in a house. There's are various rooms like the kitchen, living room, bathroom, etc. They all have their uses and we use them all but not all the time and not all for the same thing. I think the proper phrase would be that we only use 10%-30% of our brain at any one time.

[Silvereyes]

without the big brain , we wouldnt be at the top of the food chain ,without the big brain we wouldnt be the most dominant of the animal kingdom ,Without the big brain we would be dumb ,lol .

[Sir Key]

so you got no big brain j/k no offense meant

[Takmadeus]

wow one question and so many answers...
there's another thing i've heard once but not sure about...
there are more synapsis in a second in our brain than atoms in the universe...
is that true?

Wrong!..... as it was previously said, that is impossible.... I guess protoman would do a fine debate in here.... but this is what i will say....

We dop not even know how big the universe is (not even if it has limits or is infinite) that means that the size of the unioverse would be damn big (for us).... and talking in account how small is an atom, the number of atoms in the universe would be imensely big.... (I guess there are enough atoms in our world to make it seem impossible to count them compared to the number of "synaptic calls" in our brain.....)

[l3illyl3ob]

Originally Posted by hybrid23

wow one question and so many answers...
there's another thing i've heard once but not sure about...
there are more synapsis in a second in our brain than atoms in the universe...
is that true?

i EXTREMELY doubt that. There is an uncountably large number of atoms (even in scientific notation, it would be very difficult to write), and the number of synapsis wouldn't ever be that high.