9/16/2008

Dale's Prophecy

I was thinking the other day (kind of inspired by Heroes and Kyle XY), about why humans only use about 10% of their brains. Now I'm no neurosurgeon, and could probably look this information up, but at the moment I prefer my own, unanswered ponderings...

Does everyone use the exact same parts of their brain to constitute the 10%? Have there been medically documented exceptions? Are there variations within the 10% between different people? If so, are there correlations between occupation and areas of brain activity? Or even culture or class?

I guess I've also been thinking about free will versus determinism lately too (and wondering if the process of which is something I've been genetically programmed to do). See, this is what happens when I only go to a handful of psychology lectures and pick up a mish-mash of information!

The very unscientific conclusion I came to was that if we had too much brain activity our circuits would overload on an excess of information. Maybe with evolution we'll use more and more of our brains. But at the rate humans are evolving, we'll have to wait many thousands of years to see if that eventuates. You can call it my prophecy if you'd like. Note how hard it is to disprove. :)

No doubt I shall be mulling this over as I prowl the aisles at Coles tonight. If I come up with any more thoughts on this I'll put them in the comments section. Am thinking I'll question the whole superpowers/increased brain activity idea.

Thanks for hearing my thoughts... I'll invite you back into my brain soon, but for now please leave my head.

Dale.

3 comments:

Paul said...

(It didn't last long james)

What the hell are you on about dale. Why mention this if all you are going to do is just regurgitate a perspective thats been done to death. And the brain would more likely overheat than overload.

Welcome to Creepy Lamingtons: home to a mix of strange stories and articles that hopefully won't leave an unpleasant taste in your mouth. said...

So what you're saying is... Paul uses the criticism parts of the human brain to make up his 10%?

Actually, er, the 10% of our brain thing is a myth. (Not to rain on your prophecy.) At certain times, like when resting or watching Today Tonight, you may only use 10% of your brain - but throughout a normal day you should use all 100%. That's why damage to any area of your brain will cause major problems - we need and use it all. (I went to all my psychology classes.) :p

Jimzip said...

Haha. Nice. I see Paul is back in all his sensorious glory.

Yeah I've heard different things. Some say 10%, some 17, some 20. In any case, I think we function the way we were designed to function.

Also, and from what I understand about it, I think it's not that we only use 10% of our brains overall. I think it's that we can only use that amount at any one time.

Who knows... Maybe I'll find someone who studies neurology and get their 2c for you. :)

Jimzip :D