The 10% of the brain myth
The media seems to be repeating the idea that we use just 10% of our brains and taking it as a given. Scientists have tried for years to change this misconception and they have clearly stated that there is no scientific evidence to suggest that we use only 10% of our brains. In fact it is very hard to say what using just 10% of your brain means. It could mean that you could cut 90% of your brain and be just fine or that you just use only one out of every ten nerve cells is essential or used at any one time.Start with the beginning. This is a myth. It is hard to track down where it started from; it probably originates in the work that Karl Lashley conducted in the 1920s and 1930s when he removed large areas of the cerebral cortex in rats and found that these animals could still relearn specific tasks. But we know for a fact that even a tiny damaged area of the brain could have devastating effects which shows that his work was misunderstood.
Brain scans show that the regions which are activated when we move or think or do any activity are spread in every part of the brain. This goes to show that the brain activity is not limited to 10% of the brain and not even to 10% of the neurons. There may be some areas which have no particular tasks or whose tasks we have not fully understood but they are not inactive. Neurons are permanently stimulated because without stimulation they would just die. So 90% of the neurons would die. But the intriguing thing is that in most cases we are not able to perform a number of activities at the same time.
So the good thing is that without using every neuron we have we can improve our brains because it matters not how many neurons we have but how many connections they have between each other. And note that evolution has never created a species whose organ with the biggest energy consume was 90% useless.
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Thank god, that was a myth… I was hardly disturbed by the theory, I could not carry a kg of wieght in my brain that is just useless and making my brain a pile of organic shit.
thanks,
Cipher
The First time i heard that, wasn`t 10% of the brain, but 10% of the mind. I think both are wrong anyway.
The thing the 10% rule misses is that the neurons that are NOT firing are just as important as the ones that are. A good analogy is a type written page. If you only count the black parts, then we ‘use’ only a few percent of the page. If you remove all the white parts you would get a black rectangle about the size of a postage stamp, and all meaning would be lost. Likewise, in the brain the non-firing neurons serve as the white background that make the firing neurons have meaning.
I’d say that most people are hovering under 10% of their mental *potential* however. Anyone who watches mainstream television for example.
I’m pretty sure that they originally thought that the human being was only capable of using a maximum of 10 percent of the brain at a time. At least that’s what I was told if I remember right.
Your English needs some work.
The “E” in english should not be capitalized.
You’re wrong, English is capitalized.
The “E” in ‘English’ should be capitalised [British spelling] kaspar as dictated by the rules of the English language. It’s different in Spanish though.
I was under the impression that the idea was that we only ever use 10% of our total capacity, meaning that we could theoretically learn 10 times the amount of stuff we already know and still have the capacity for it. Of course this would have to be an “on average” kind of thing.
Yup, this sounds like a strange myth that we’ve accepted for too long.
R Keene - great analogy. I love!
Izabael - could be true, but increasing potential doesn’t increase actual brain activity, I think it just changes it.
Bob - don’t be an ass! Why don’t you give “constructive criticism”? You bothered to take the time to say “Your English needs some work.” You should have taken an extra couple of minutes to give examples; for example, a comma at the end of the third line “In fact, it is…” wouldn’t go astray and the “which” at the top of the second paragraph is misplaced (it should probably be a “that”). I don’t know if these are the sorts of things you meant. However, the writer (osamik?) conveyed their thoughts clearly and simply and didn’t ramble. They’re doing a lot better than a great number of people on the net.
Only the dumb asses who repeat this myth use only 10% of their brains.
Whenever someone says that to me, I ask them how do they know that and where’s the evidence. They never have an answer. Then I ask them, how would you even measure 100% of the brain’s potential. What are your units? Then they shut up and never talk to me again. And that makes me happy.
I’d still rather have a full bottle in front of me . . .
Some people seem not to use any percentage of their brains most of their lives, but of course they use it. I would rather not see this happening, but what can I do…
I always knew that was wrong, because most people use 1% of their brain and Aristotle was correct in stating that the brain’s function is to cool the blood.
In fact I have proof
Man Lives Normal Life with Tiny (Egg-sized) Brain
http://www.techdo.com/man-lives-normal-life-with-tiny-egg-sized-brain/
my .sig file for years has been
“Gullible people only use 10% of their brain”
I think that statement that the majority of us only us 10% of our brains isn’t talking about the actual firing of neurons and nerve cells, but rather that the capacity of our brains that is being used is only 10% meaning that while we are using all our neurons and nerve cells, we aren’t using them to full capacity, which I would say is totally correct.