Brain Percentage Used.

[Evad]

I know it's kind of thought of as a myth, but I was having an argument with someone about it. I thought I read somewhere that Einstein said he thought he only used about 3% of his brain; or as little as 3%. But everywhere I look all I can find is 10%.

[Havell]

http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percnt.htm

According to that, it's a myth but Snopes has failed me in the past.

[Quintopotere]

This could be a bit :ot: , but: if i'm right (and i could be not) we use only 30% of the muscle fiber of a muscle in a specific moment (to keep the blood flux between the fibers)...

[Ignite]

We use 10% eh? Then why does some people act like, they only use 2%?

[Scorpius]

Because not all are same smart and some are less intelligent than others?

[moogle]

I've heard this myth a hundred times over, they lso refer to it in comics,theres this one guy whos supposed to be super smart because he uses 100% of his brain where as we only use 10.

Its just a myth, fake.

[kleine777]

LOL good one ignite

[Iron_Scarecrow]

I heard we don't use our brain to its full potential, which is most likely correct, but I never heard of any percentages before.

[TheVoid]

I use 98%. Basta.

[Aristharus]

snopes.com isn't always right, but in that case it is. That's a myth.

[TheGiantMidgit]

I'm functioning at a rate around 143%. I had to import brain to meet my qouta. ...yes, import it. Directly into my skull.

[Iron_Scarecrow]

So now you have 143% of brainage. And so you are now only using 100%. It's just you have more brain to use 100% on.

[TheGiantMidgit]

Ah, but I'm comparing it to the average brain, so you primates can relate and comprehend just how exceedingly intelligent I am in comparison to your own simian like minds.

[Iron_Scarecrow]

Wow, you thought of everything, you really are smarter than the average bear.


By the way where did you import this brain from?

[TheGiantMidgit]

China, only the finest (and cheapest) for my head.

[Evad]

I was wondering if anyone had heard the direct quote of 3%.

I also think this is a myth after I saw a program showing how blind people use part of their visual cortex for imagry. They wouyld give a blind person an object and ask them to imagin what it looks like, and from their reading the persons visual cortex was very active, even though this area of the brain was "supposedly" redundant. Where we faulter I believe is habitual thinking and laziness.

[Ignite]

My brain is part-polar bear :ok:

[lethe]

It growls at night?

[Borodin]

Originally posted by Evad@Dec 22 2005, 02:44 PM
I know it's kind of thought of as a myth, but I was having an argument with someone about it. I thought I read somewhere that Einstein said he thought he only used about 3% of his brain; or as little as 3%. But everywhere I look all I can find is 10%.
I asked a friend of mine, a neurobiologist about this, once. She said it's a myth, pretty much as you'd expect. Much of brain activity has nothing to do with the conscious mind, but is occupied in a huge variety of body controlling and monitoring activities. We just like to think of the ego, "ourself," as the brain; and we're not. We're actually the whole mix. :D

[Evad]

hey can you ask your friend about the 3%. Everywhere I look its 10%, but I remember reading somewhere that Einstein figured that was too high and he thought he only used 3%. I know its a myth, my point here is the 3% figure specifically.

[Eagle of Fire]

The main point to remember here is that it might be true that we only use 10% of our brain mass at a single given time, but all the brain mass is usefull for something. It's just that we have no use to certain parts of the brain when we do a specific task, so we make it "sleep" until we need it.

What Einstein tried to say here is that mathematics are really not that hard if you actually try to learn as much as he did. Let's not forget that he failed big time at school and yet he is considered as one of the greatest mind of the whole Earth.

[Stebbi]

um yeah the avrage human uses about 10 % of his brain but einstein had a brain doubled in size of an normal person and he used a whole lot of his brain i think about 15 %

[Borodin]

Originally posted by Evad@Dec 24 2005, 10:56 PM
hey can you ask your friend about the 3%. Everywhere I look its 10%, but I remember reading somewhere that Einstein figured that was too high and he thought he only used 3%. I know its a myth, my point here is the 3% figure specifically.
I will, when she's back from Morocco, where she went with her husband on vacation.

[rlbell]

Alot of the brain is composed of spare parts to route signals around damage, plus other sorts of redundancies. The origin of the ten percent myth comes from a misnderstanding of a neurobiologist's comment that we only knew what ten percent of the brain was for. This became twisted to 'we only use ten percent of our brains'.

On a similar note, our ability to notice what goes on around us is hampered by what we know. Avagadro discovered that if you put wax in a bat's ears, it bumps into things. Everybody laughed at the suggestion that bats could see with their ears, so this fact was forgotten. About five hundred years later, radio beams sweep the skies for aircraft, attempts are made to bounce sound pulses off of submarines, someone makes an oscilloscope to analyse sounds that we cannot hear, and we finally learn what Avogadro knew-- bats use echolocation. Not too long ago, someone figured out how to make holograms with sound waves, so we now know that bats use holographic imaging sonar. No doubt that the bats are happy about being able to catch insects on the wing, while not bumping into stuff.

Another famous instance was the observation that the two pairs of wings of a bumblebee cannot produce the necessary lift for a bumblebee to fly. There was much pondering about how the bumblebees managed to ignore this scientific fact; until, the invention of the electron microscope. The bumblebee is well aware of how its two pairs of wings cannot lift it, so it has sets of ridges that allow its two pairs of wings to combine into a single pair of wings.

The book "The Day the Universe Changed", by James Burke, explores several events in history where what we learned changed what we saw.

[Bp103]

we use 99.5% of ower brain just not directly. Have you guys ever seen a M.R.I. scan? Black means not useing or dead. In the M.R.I. scan on a normal person...or adlest as normal as they get theres almost no black.
I have a IQ of 170.....or adlest i will when i turn 20 years old. My brain is not fully developed some doctor said it I hope hes right :P

[Kearnsy]

Wow not bad at all.

When you think about it, quite a few parts of your brain would be used in situations like having a conversaition. Not only do you draw back on your knowledge and memory of ast events, but you must also keep your body functioning. Your brain still controls your breathing and muscluar movements, just no always conciously.

As for people not using as much as others, well Im sure that that is true to some extent but it may not even be linked to a level of intelligence... maybe even the opposite! (think about it!) :sneaky:

[WaAn]

And maybe you've heard that if someone would use 100% of his brain, he could use telekinesis? Myths for mythbusters! Yeah!

[Sebatianos]

Well I may be completely wrong, but if I remember correctly people only use 10% of the brain for thinking. The rest of the brains we can't even control (it's got nothing to do with how smart you are). The other 90% are used for other functions (the main part for memory) and there are parts that the use for wasn't even discovered for (could be for bending spoons with thoughts)...

[rlbell]

Originally posted by Sebatianos@Jan 5 2006, 02:34 PM
Well I may be completely wrong, but if I remember correctly people only use 10% of the brain for thinking. The rest of the brains we can't even control (it's got nothing to do with how smart you are). The other 90% are used for other functions (the main part for memory) and there are parts that the use for wasn't even discovered for (could be for bending spoons with thoughts)...
Much as I would like to affect physical objects with mental powers, or read other people's minds, the sad fact is that every properly designed experiment for paranormal abilities has had negative results and every test subject that has shown positive results in poorly designed tests has failed once subject to rigorous scrutiny (James Randi, and all of his friends, still have their million dollars).

Anyone who claims to have reliable psychic powers that has not won the JREF challenge is either a self-deluding fool, or a fraud. Dowsers (people who can detect underground water) have been trying to collect the prize for several decades, but continue to come up dry.

[Quintopotere]

Originally posted by rlbell@Jan 5 2006, 04:11 PM
the sad fact is that every properly designed experiment for paranormal abilities has had negative results and every test subject that has shown positive results in poorly designed tests has failed once subject to rigorous scrutiny
Luckily, they all failed!

I don't like thinking that there are people who go around reading minds (expecially my mind! :not_ok: )

[Sebatianos]

Well, they're already listening in on your phone calls and reading your e-mails not to mention watching you wherever you go, whatever you do... Well not really, but they could (they have the power and oportunity, but I guess you're not importaint/suspicius enoug to be listened to).

So what difference would it make if they had the possibility to read your thoughts as well?