Do We Use Only 10% of Our Brain?

Nope, lots of people use less. Way less.

to quote Bart Simpson "most people use 10% of their brains, and now I'm one of them"



I'm using more than that right now just to ignore things that bug me...

Yeah, I think I do use less than 10% when I'm buying and selling lights.

I heard somwhere that the power of the brain is only limited by the avaliable blood supply.

regards.

i saw a specail that was on pps about new meds that gave the abilty to use 29 percent of the brain the guy went insane and now thinks he is a duck .so now he turds on everything and eats bread all day and tryied to fly about 40 times

I find that claim hard to digest. If we don't even know the full power of our brain, how can we assume we're using only 10% of it? Something doesn't sound right. True, we may be capable of amazing thoughts and other achievements, but pinning 10% seems as arbitrary as stating 5% or 53.42%.

My 0.02 synapses.

If Douglas Adams is right, we do use only 10%. The other 90% are used for storing penguins. He wrote that in "The long dark teatime of the soul".

Chrisse

brain tissue, is the most energy intensive tissue in the body, more that muscle tissure.

It takes a lot of calories to power a brain our size, and nature does not waste anything.

maybe we only use 10% now, in our safe lives.

but when our backs agains the wall, in our past when inteligence made the difference between life and death.

we had the ability to access more brain power.

remember human being have been evolving over millions of years.

just because we are the current model.

does not mean we are the most inteligent one.

take the advance of automobiles, we are now going from huge gas guzilers to more advanced small energy efficent models.

this is just a theory anyway.

regards.

RE: Do We Use Only 10% of Our Brain?

No, nature doesn't usually carry the weight of things we don't use.

I think that statement came from either a scientist who wanted a research grant or a bored reporter. A much better question could be arrived at by changing just one word:

Do We Understand Only 10% of Our Brain?

So david copperfield uses at least 50% of his brain?

Well the statement is about as worthless as saying most people only eat about 10% of the maximum they can theoretically eat.
Why?

1) Our brain is a massively parallel computer. So if every single brain cell is used we would use 100%, the question is more does it make sense and can more be achieved by using 100% of your brain. In computers doubling the computing cores doesnt lead to a speed doubling - since most tasks require serial processing. So adding a second core only adds maybe 30% to most computing tasks. Every additional core added decreases the additional value. I think the same is true for the massively parallel brain.

2) Second it all depends on the surrounding. Lets say if you do extremely hard labor all day long, you can probably eat twice or three times as much. Yes you could probably stuff three times that into yourself but it wouldnt be healthy and eventually you would die. The question is, is 100% the quantity which can kill you, or is it the longterms sustainable quantity. So more is not better. It is for this particular situation but generally more doesnt make sense. The same is true for the brain.

3) Measurement-What is 100% since no one has ever observed 100% we don't know what 10% is. And chopping of 10% of the brain of a pigeon and looking at how much it impacts a pigeon and based on that estimating 100% is wrong because biological systems tend to collapse immediately once a certain threashold is reached - which basically voids any method of us figuring out how much is 100%.

Many more reasons why the statement is bogus (f.e. collective intelligence etc), but too much to write...

I figure I am like Milk in this one regard}+++ 2% brain used 2% Milk is what we drink. Not saying that the one causes the other just figure thats as close a personal tie to Milk I will ever have.
It would have been a shame not to point that out.
A shame I could not live with.
Topper

Seems like an urban legend to me: http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percnt.htm

Greg

I am amazed this is still believed. Has no one ever seen an MRI? Just looking at the brain activity on an MRI proves that much, MUCH more than 10% of the brain is being used. There is more blood flow to certain parts of the brain relative to other parts, but the entire brain is being used.

I won't argue about the link as I didn't even click it.

That said, I tend to think of my brain as sort of a 386 'puter, with maybe a 40meg HD. I'm nearly full, and could REALLY use de-fragging!

On a more realistic note, I do find here in my middle 40's that I already have quite a bit of trouble with remebering some of the most simple stuff....

HORSE CRAP!!!! We use almost all of our brains. Like Lumenz said, an MRI shows all the areas that are used for sight, hearing, smells, taste, touch, short and long term memory. If I recally right, the eye part of the brain takes the most power and most thought of our brains.

Now if you are in a coma, you may only be using the stem to keep your heart and lungs working, but if you are in a coma, its hard to say what your doing anything and if its worth anything, however you measure that.