Repeat after me: the idea that you only use 10% of your brain is a myth. That's right, it's complete bullshit, utter crap. It makes me angry to hear it so often. It's odd really, this is not a case where there is a small group on the fringe claiming this is the fact, no one in the field (mine is computational/integrative neuroscience, which as you can see from just its name is full of buzz-words:P) has held this theory for as long as I've been in it (maye even ever but I don't know that). It's quite non-sensical really, 10% of what? Of the brain's potential? Do you really think we have a quantitative way of measuring that, or of "how much of it you're using even? Do you only count cognition or subconscious functions as well? Which method do you use to measure these and how do you differentiate between the cognitive and the non-cognitive? This pissed Stephen Gould (rest his soul) off enough that he penned an entire article about myths concerning evolution that opened by bitching about this stupid idea. Please, for the love of all that is scientific and good, STOP PROPAGATING THIS STUPID MYTH! At very least on slashdot, you're supposed to be a geek damn it, you ought to know better. *grumbles* 10%, I gotcher 10% right here bub.
Yeah, yeah, so we all know that the 10%-thing is used mostly by scientologists and other peddlers of pop psychology and pseudo science. It has little to do with the actual article, though. The thought that the brain can temporarily specialize (or concentrate if you will) on one particular task is hardly strange.
There are several parameters regarding your brains functioning that ought to be tuned differently for different situations, for example: Plasticity (a parameter used in Artificial Neural Networks)
Whilst such parameters are arbitrary measures of processing, if you can learn to control them, you can start to condition yourself to shift parameters appropriately for each situation. Here are a few more:
- Emotional vs Reasoned Intelligence. - Internal vs External Focus of Attention. - Action vs Planning.
During a state of mild hypogycemia in the brain, computational skills (adding, subtracting, categorizing, naming, remembering related details, time-space awareness) are removed however a "train of thought" can be held or an inner dialogue can continue. As sugar drops in the blood circulating atound the body and brain, this inner dialogue becomes repetitious or "spotty". Perspective is shortened to a narrow scope and only objects immediately in front of oneself can be deciphered or "seen" by the brain. As
The story I heard was that 90% of the brain was support cells and 10% neurons, hence "we use 10% of our brain". After that, it got reinterpreted. Not sure if that's a fact...
NO!! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Agreed, but not relevant to the article (Score:2)
There are several parameters regarding your brains functioning that ought to be tuned differently for different situations, for example: Plasticity (a parameter used in Artificial Neural Networks)
Re:Agreed, but not relevant to the article (Score:1)
- Emotional vs Reasoned Intelligence.
- Internal vs External Focus of Attention.
- Action vs Planning.
Re:NO!! (Score:1, Interesting)
Yes??? (Score:1)
Re:NO!! (Score:1)
What the original quote was (Score:2)
Well now (Score:2)
Re:NO!! (Score:2)