People only use 10% of their brains!

[peanutaxis]

I Rage at the inanity of this statement.:mad:


I remember teachers saying it to me/us with the implication that we should try harder. Idiots.

It's like saying "Your an idiot because most of your house is empty space, especially up near the ceiling!"


But I am ignorant of the scientific link (if any)

[Mageth]

There is no scientific link. We use our entire brain. Some people use it better than others, of course. ;)

[Mizled]

Ah I hate that too - it is bullshit and an easy search refutes it.

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

[RareBird]

Our educational modalities do not reflect an understanding of the actual dynamic of intellectual development. Thus we indeed grossly underutilize our intellectual potential. The brain actually "grows" the interconnects it needs to facilitate greater challenges upon it. "Crash coursing" and fact memorization do nothing to achiev and sustain a regiment that leads to intellectual development. Two factors which must come into the mix are personal motivation and "meta-cognition" or the practice of considering how well we're thinking and learning what about ourselves is in the way of the big breakthroughs. I don't know in terms of a pecentage how much "brain" we use or how much more we would use with a superior developmental regimine. I only know that education to avoid consequence is a lousy way to proceed. Education to facilitate one's own unique drive to connect with arts, sciences and fellows is bound to result in a brain that spurs its own physiological growth.

[peanutaxis]

Our educational modalities do not reflect an understanding of the actual dynamic of intellectual development.......

So we have an understanding of the actual dynamic of intellectual development, but our educational modalities do not have this understanding.:confused:

Thus we indeed grossly underutilize our intellectual potential.

Why does this prove that we don't realise our potential?

[suttsteve]

We use 100%, not merely 10%

[erimir]

I am under the impression that we use all our brain tissue, but we might put it to more use if we are truly stimulating our brains, e.g. there will be more dense neural connections. It's the same amount of tissue though.

Our bodies have no use for excess tissue, especially not tissue that uses up as much energy as our brains do. It would make no sense for our brains to be 10x as big as they need to be. It would be wasted energy when we could have been more energy efficient and therefore need less energy, therefore survive better, therefore such wastefulness would have been weeded out of the gene pool.

[naturalist.atheist]

I am afraid you are all wrong. There are people that only use 10% of their brains. But they are easy to spot because they are the one's saying that we only use 10% of our brains.

[javarush]

Savant abilities often get dragged into the 10% mythology.

While I can't vouch for the host site or their motivations, they compiled some interesting quote snips on savant abilities: snippets (http://www.icbe.ie/Documents/Beautiful_Minds_DVD.pdf)

[Pavlov's Dog]

I use 110% of my brain because I am a real go-getter.

[Simen]

Savant abilities often get dragged into the 10% mythology.

Here's (http://www.centreforthemind.com/publications/IntegerArithmetic.cfm) a link that suggests savant abilities are as they are because savants have access to "low level" information in the brain, but fail to integrate it into the full picture. It certainly makes sense in an evolutionary perspective: 99.99% of the time, understanding the whole picture is a better tool for survival than having the ability to recall or process the details with astonishing precision. So it seems savants are the one's who get only 10% - of course, 10% is just some random figure someone made up, but the point is that by focusing on a small part, you miss the big picture.

This theory could also account for sensory integration failures. If your brain is incapable of ignoring irrelevant sense data, you'll quickly become overwhelmed.

[Chamaeleon]

As long as all neurons and synapses do whatever they are supposed to do throughout my brain I'll maintain I use my brain 100%. Whether I use it like a Prius or a Hummer is a different matter of course.

[peanutaxis]

I am under the impression that we use all our brain tissue, but we might put it to more use if we are truly stimulating our brains, e.g. there will be more dense neural connections. It's the same amount of tissue though.

Our bodies have no use for excess tissue, especially not tissue that uses up as much energy as our brains do. It would make no sense for our brains to be 10x as big as they need to be. It would be wasted energy when we could have been more energy efficient and therefore need less energy, therefore survive better, therefore such wastefulness would have been weeded out of the gene pool.

Do brains not being used use as much energy as brains being used, I wonder?

[jayh]

Do brains not being used use as much energy as brains being used, I wonder?

Actually no.

That is how some brain research is done: searching for areas of high chemical reaction during different tasks.

[Late_Cretaceous]

If I have a house with 10 rooms, but can only be in one room at a time does that mean I only use 10% of my house?

[RareBird]

So we have an understanding of the actual dynamic of intellectual development, but our educational modalities do not have this understanding.:confused:

Apparently "we" don't. But "I" do. And others do as well. If you don't understand it, please be advised that it is not something that can be surmized in an instant for its meaning and scope--especially to someone who has never known anything but what is typical of the prevailing modality. And thus, it is not something to dismiss without lengthy consideration. Basically what it comes down to is this: typical education concerns itself with trying to "input" facts or formulas into a mind. It only cares about the "output" of that mind when it comes to "tests" based upon the what it has tried to input. In reality, it is not until we ourselves fully individualize our "output" into personal articulations that we conduct relations of relvenace that finishes the understanding process. Many people who go into education professionally often find that "by teaching they are taught"--in other words, they didn't realize how well they understood or cared about something until they had to go though the process of trying to make it make sense for some one else. This is not merely a question of additional "thinking processes". Another dynamic is at work here as well. That dynamic is the actual growth of interconnects in the brain (called dendrites) to accomodate deeper calls for understanding. We are not "static" intellects which stop growing when our bodies do. Our brains are like muscles which have their own progressive resistance dynamic. Finding the words to "craft" your output into true understanding puts extra processes into work that contribute to "mind growth" facilitation much more than the appearance of memorization so to be able to get through a mutiple choice quiz. That does not equate into percentages of "brain used" but by comparison, a modality of passive presentation and multiple choice quizzing is far far and away less personally developmental than a sociology of articulated perception. My guess is that 10% is about right for the former. And, there are ways to get at the other 90% if we change some basic developmental dynamics.

[Scifinerdgrl]

The statement is a misquote. The original is from a human resource director at a large school district: "We look for teachers who use 10 percent of their brains... but of course they're hard to find."

;)

[Harumi]

I was under the impression that it was, "We use ten percent of our brain...at a time."

Which makes a bit more sense than having a brain that is 90% useless. If that was the case, head traumas would be less dangerous. After all, 90% of it is useless tissue anyways.

[Styrofoamdeity]

The next time you hear someone say that "most people only use 10% of their brain" shoot them in the head. They should have a 90% chance of living.

[peanutaxis]

I get you now. But...


................. in other words, they didn't realize how well they understood or cared about something until they had to go though the process of trying to make it make sense for some one else. ...... Another dynamic is at work here as well. That dynamic is the actual growth of interconnects in the brain (called dendrites) to accomodate deeper calls for understanding..................

[Odin2006]

Were the hell did the "We only use 10% of our brain" myth come from? It seems like people, even very well educated people, repeat it ad nauseum even though it's complete BS.

[Harumi]

Were the hell did the "We only use 10% of our brain" myth come from? It seems like people, even very well educated people, repeat it ad nauseum even though it's complete BS.

I heard that it was popularized after a Disney movie came out where one of the characters (a computerized being in an extraterrestrial movie) said this to the main character when they were discussing human deficiencies. I've watched the movie and heard that for the first time from watching that movie too.

Don't know if it's actually true though.

[Scifinerdgrl]

Were the hell did the "We only use 10% of our brain" myth come from? It seems like people, even very well educated people, repeat it ad nauseum even though it's complete BS.

Here ya go: http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/tenper.html


The 10% statement may have been started with a misquote of Albert Einstein or the misinterpretation of the work of Pierre Flourens in the 1800s. It may have been William James who wrote in 1908: "We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources" (from The Energies of Men, p. 12). Perhaps it was the work of Karl Lashley

[GenesisNemesis]

Where did the 10% crap originate from anyways? :confused: Oh. Sorry Scifinerdgrl... I skimmed. :P

[llanitedave]

Most of the brain is not used for conscious thinking or intellect. Most of it is used for fine motor control, for processing sensory inputs, for manipulating linguistic symbols, for determining mood and emotion, and for controlling autonomous system functions. Maybe 10% is used for thinking. But that doesn't render the other 90% unimportant -- or available for more thinking.

[Garrett]

Analogy: it's like saying we use only 10% of our bodies.

In a way it's true - usually all of our muscles are not working at 100% of their potential. But we use our entire body, as needed.

Physical exercise and practice increases the potential abilities of our muscles - just as mental exercise and practice increases our mental abilities.