Printable View
Quote:
Originally Posted by rebgirl420
The myth originated from a study that concluded that the average human uses 10 - 15% of their brains at any given time. Now, if we were constantly using the full 100% of our brains at once... well things would happen.
I believe that human brains are quantum devices, able to tap into the energy around them. The average human uses 10 - 15% of their brain, and I feel they use the same amount of their perceptions, and are only aware of 10 - 15% of what's going on. At 100 percent at all times, a human could and probably would learn quite a bit, and would be able to perceive every viewpoint and outcome.Quote:
Originally Posted by couch-potato
sorry dude, but the truth is humans use about 85-100% of their brain. (depending on the situation)Quote:
Originally Posted by maxsuperdanks
it may not be noticeable but the next time you sweat, get thirsty, get hungry, feel pain, feel any sensation at all, that your brain had to go and find the memory of those things by itself without being asked, just doing it, and giving it to your body in a matter of milli-seconds.
your brain has the ability to delay certain sensations, such as pain, but only when absolutely necessary will it do this.
your brain is constantly doing minor and major adjustments to your body, keeping you alive, so if im using 10%, how do i survive doing math problems?
Well... even if we use our whole brain (what i doubt very much), it does not mean that we are using it at its full capacity.Quote:
Originally Posted by marijuanavillebilly
It may be like a factory with with lots of workers and very few work to do. Everybody may be working, but each worker can be working very slowly, chatting a bit, having a coffee, smoking a joint...
Well... while it is indeed an amazing work our brain does, still it is not everything that our brains can do. It is only a very small part of all our possibilities. Most of our brain skills we dont even know we have.Quote:
Originally Posted by marijuanavillebilly
When we are babies, our brains have its full potential. Then, during our growth and learning, we start to use some areas of it, which are related to the things we learn to do, and stop to use other areas of it, which are not related to the things we learn to do. So, what we learn when were childs is what defines which areas of our brain we will keep using, and which areas will be "turned off" due lack of use.
So, when we are adults we are masters of using only the parts of the brain we learned to use, and think its all our brains can do.
If we didn't use most of our brain, we wouldn't have it. It is a very expensive organ in terms of it's energy use, nutrition needs, and the many years it adds to our maturing to devlop it. If we didn't need it, evolution would have got rid of it.
I think it is sort of like the engine of your car. You don't drive around at flat-out, maximum power, with your engine redlined all the time. But if your car didn't need the extra power that it takes to accellerate and to drive fast when necessary, the engineers would not put it in. Why pay for the extra power and fuel consumption if it's not needed?
Also, like an engine, your brain is not capable of maintaining its maximum capacity all the time. Have you ever had to do long stretches of intense brain wrok? It is exhausting.
And I'd like to know how these scientists come up with the idea that you only use some small percentage of your brain. Do they mean you only use that much for conscious thought? Do they mean when you are just sitting around doing nothing except breathing and digesting or when you are doing calculus? How do they determine what the maximum capacity is, and how do they determine how much you are using? Say I am doing something that uses all the brain power I am able to muster, like an intense calculation of some kind, is that what they call the maximum? Or do they still call that only 15% because not every single neuron lights up on the CAT scan?
I have a feeling this statistic is something that a scientist used to describe one specific kind of measurable brain phenomenon, and people have taken it out of context to suggest that we aren't developing our minds the way we should.
The brain is a fascinating organ. Everything from split-second reaction times to fight-or-flight instincts are hardwired, and even if you've never been confronted with a fight-or-flight scenario, your brain will instinctively know what to do should the need ever arise.
I ride motorcycles, and anyone who's a fellow rider knows that things can happen in a fraction of a second that could mean the difference between life and death. I've had idiot drivers swerve across FOUR lanes of interstate traffic in apparent attempts to knock me off my bike, yet in less than a second, I instinctively knew to jam the brakes or punch the throttle just in time to avoid a collision. Same story with animals running crossing my path, elderly drivers pulling right out in front of me, potholes, etcetera. When I see these things, my initial reaction is to panic and freeze up, but then my brain takes over and makes me lean the bike to one side or the other, and narrowly escape disaster. Been riding some sort of motorized bike since I was 10 years old, and been riding sportbikes for nearly 10 years now. Only one wreck to date, which was my fault, and a gazillion close calls/near misses... and counting.
Cool thread, by the way.
Be sure to wear a helmet, otherwise if you get in another accident, you may only end up being left with 10% to 15% of your brain (which is apparently enough by some estimates).Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Clandestine
LMAO! Helmet laws are mandatory in my state, and even if they weren't, I'd still wear my full-face helm and riding jacket (which resembles blue anatomical body armor) everywhere I go. After living in Florida for several years, where there are no helmet laws, I've seen what happens to human skulls that smash into the pavement going 70+ mph... as you can probably imagine, it ain't pretty. I think any biker who doesn't adorn a helmet before he rides is only using 10%-15% of his brain, anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by dragonrider
anybody interested in this thread should pick up a copy of "The Accidental Mind", it's an amazing book about why the impressive concepts of the brain are nothing more than evolutionary ice-cream scoops, just building up on past developments.
Like intuition... if you close your eyes and someone holds something out in front of you, there is a high percentage that you will find it with your hand on the first try. This is an archaic type of "sight" that our early early early ancestors had, I'm talking swimming boogers ancestors.
It's really quite an amazing book.
and ps...on the whole "we don't use more than 10-15% of our brain", as far as I've understood it that's only slightly true... we utilize all of our brain, but we don't use more than 10-15% of it at a given time.
Apparantly if we used all of the parts in our brain simultaneously, the firing synapses would send us into seizures. We've been set up with a brain that we are physically incapable of utilizing to it's full potential. Funny. :)
Well... for example: some people know how to play a musical instrument, or juggle things, or speak another language, or do math, and some people dont. Everybody (presumably) can learn to do this things, which are controled by different parts of the brain.
This parts are there in everybodys brains. The difference is the ones who knows how to do this things are using this parts of the brain, while the ones who dont know are not.
I had some teachers that used to say that the brain is much like a muscle... if you exercise it, it becomes stronger and you can use it even more. But if you dont exercise it, it becomes weak and easily tired.
Being high is another example. Im sure when were high our brain is using different parts of it, parts that are not usually active when were sober, and thats why when were high we notice several things, we realize things, which we would never do if we were sober.
Also there are several people who has "psychic" abilities... and much of them were normal people who learned it, (there is courses of it), what shows that the ability to do it was already into their (and presumably everybodys) brains, just waiting to be used.
So, i think when they say we only use 15% of our brain they mean we only use 15% of our total possibilities, 15% of everything we would learn to do with our brains.
And if it were what they mean, i would think its a very high estimate... im sure our brains are FAR more powerful than that. Maybe this 15% refers only to the abilities they know, instead of all total possibilities...