# The brain potential



## Creator (Sep 8, 2007)

Hi I heard of the fact that people use 1-2% of their brains what does this mean?


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## j d worthington (Sep 8, 2007)

Ah... this is an old chestnut, though the usual percentage named is 10%....

Essentially, it means that at any given moment, people are only consciously using 10% of the potential of their brain. However, that means that, from microsecond to microsecond, different parts of the brain are being used, so that the majority (if not the totality) of the brain actually gets used in such short measure that one can never really say any of it is disused or not being used for more than a few moments, maximum. This is not to mention the enormous amount of the brain that is in constant use for the autonomic nervous system, memory storage, the unconscious drives that lie behind our conscious thoughts, etc., or the constantly changing interconnections being made between various parts of the brain as new associations create new synaptic connections.

In other words... technically it's more or less true, but it only has a very limited application in what it means.....


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## Creator (Sep 8, 2007)

yah just need a confirmation on this fact... I have been surfing the web and can't really tell what is the truth in this department of unleashing the genius or physical genius or something.....


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## j d worthington (Sep 8, 2007)

Creator said:


> yah just need a confirmation on this fact... I have been surfing the web and can't really tell what is the truth in this department of unleashing the genius or physical genius or something.....


 
Let's see... there is a site that deals with such things, giving the scientific evidence in response for such "facts"....

Ah, here we go:

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Ten Percent of our Brains

which also provides the sources.....


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## Creator (Sep 8, 2007)

Errr... I have read that... but have doubts whether that's real or not... It seemed convincing... but still 

Anyway then the potential of the brain.... they say that there is a latent potential awaiting to be unleashed... not Jedi Force ah... that's Mr. Lucas.


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## j d worthington (Sep 8, 2007)

Snopes is one of the better sites for finding out the facts on such things, as it provides sources, so you can go looking up the information yourself.

The idea of "potential"... well, that's a tricky one. Theoretically, yes, there's enormous potential; the problem is that, in reality, our physical systems have evolved in such a way that use of such potential would burn out our nervous system, cause massive problems along the way (heart-attacks, anxiety attacks, etc.), not to mention a very high risk of massive psychoses. In other words... not practicable, without an evolutionary jump such as we've likely never seen....


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## Creator (Sep 8, 2007)

Potential I meant unleashing the "genius" in us.... from Left or Right brain to WHole brain kinda thing.....


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## j d worthington (Sep 8, 2007)

Creator said:


> Potential I meant unleashing the "genius" in us.... from Left or Right brain to WHole brain kinda thing.....


 
We may be talking at cross purposes, but... that's essentially what I meant. Our brains are, from the indications as I understand it, biologically evolved to suit; so "unleashing" any theoretical potential (genius, or whatever you wish to call it), would inevitably have detrimental consequences. We're seeing that with these new pills which allow people to "think faster", and more clearly, for short periods of time... the payback is that it wears the system down, much in the same way as any extreme form of physical exertion does, so that they end up burning fuel, become lassitudinous, a little thicker of thought afterward, etc. It's also an addictive thing, much like the "high" one gets from cocaine... even if there's not a physical addiction to the drug, there is to the experience, and you end up burning up your body's resources. After all, the brain must get its energy from the body, so anything that exceeds the norm for that person's brain also is exceeds the norm for that person's body, and has detrimental effects, if not slowly trained to it over a long period of time.

Training the brain for such an excess is particularly dangerous, though, as it is a very finely balanced mechanism... the tiniest fraction of a difference in brain chemistry can totally unbalance a brain/mind, causing psychosis, extreme forms of neuroses, malfunctioning of the autonomic system ending up in various bodily impacts... This is why, we're finding, it is so dangerous to prescribe so many drugs for various mental/emotional problems. Yes, they can have great benefits, if you get things right. But if there's something not taken into account, either willfully or otherwise, it can (and does) have disastrous consequences, from children being driven into permanent depressive states/suicide to temporary or permanent derangement. We still know damn' little about the brain and its delicate mechanisms, so anything of that nature is unlikely for a considerable amount of time. The brain is the most delicate thing in the human system, yet it is what makes the personality, so it is also the most pervasive.

This is not to say we won't find something of that nature in the future... but we're a very long way from doing so safely, at any rate.... We'll need to understand our genetic makeup much more thoroughly... not only what each gene does, but how it does it, and what the effects of changes would be; as well as understanding the brain/mind correlation much, much more thoroughly... how the brain develops a mind both through genetic predisposition and experience (canalization); how it compensates for damage, etc. If we do discover such a thing, it is likely to be a combination of pharmaceuticals and genetic therapy....

Essentially... I think it might help if you define what you mean by "genius" in this context....?


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## woodsman (Sep 8, 2007)

ok different but similar, I heard somewhere even when straining at maximum pain capacity our muscles only work at about 60% of their theoretical maximum and in times of dire need we can actually use them to nearer a 100% effectiveness thus meaning superhuman feats in the face of danger are believable. They 'proved' this I'm told using hypnosis to trick someone into believing their friend was stuck beneath a car. In desperation to get him out this man could lift a car that beforehand he had not bee able to move....

Anyone know anything, is this just another brain blocking thing?


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## j d worthington (Sep 8, 2007)

I've heard of similar things, though not as a formal study I must admit. My understanding of this one is that it kicks in the adrenaline response, so yes, you _can_ do "superhuman" things for short bursts... but it also causes damage to the system if it extends beyond that... adrenaline exhaustion is a very dangerous thing.


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## woodsman (Sep 8, 2007)

Ah I see, so adrenaline 'powers up' the muscles as it were? 
Or just allows them to work at their full potential?


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## Creator (Sep 8, 2007)

They say if unleashed we can be supercomputers or something like that... well how is this going to help.


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## j d worthington (Sep 8, 2007)

woodsman said:


> Ah I see, so adrenaline 'powers up' the muscles as it were?
> Or just allows them to work at their full potential?


 
It allows them to work at their full _theoretical_ potential, but only temporarily. It's something like a "test to destruction", if you will... very much of that, and you destroy the tissue... it becomes disrupted, muscle tissue gets destroyed, etc.

Creator... I'm not quite sure what you mean on that... supercomputer in the sense of being able to assimilate information and extrapolation, or...? In which case, again, theoretically, yes, there is that potential... but it is likely to be impossible to tap into, as it would require full firing of all synapses almost continuously (again, as I understand it) to achieve the full theoretical potential... which would burn out a protein-based mechanism such as the brain in very short order. The brain needs periods of rest, even if very brief, for each section, or the dendrites become "calloused", causing difficulty (or impossibility) in the electrochemical "spark" across the neural gap... eventually losing more and more ability to function.

This is not to even begin to address the problems of what this would mean with our emotional states, which are also dependent on such a mechanism (or series of mechanisms).... it would also mean our emotional state would be running at full high constantly... can you imagine having all your emotions going at full _simultaneously_? Having our memories not presented sequentially, but all at once, both the positive and the painful?


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## woodsman (Sep 8, 2007)

I see tahnks J.d. it's not advisable in other words!!

Frequent use of synapses aids them to work more efficiently up to a point I believe and after that as JD said it leads todestruction/damage of nerve endings. Perhaps the brain could function at say 50% for short periods with sleep betwixt times to rest as many neurones (sp?) as possible although I believe someone subjected to that would go madly insane at the very least.


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## Creator (Sep 9, 2007)

Hmm I see... but what about those things like say unleashing the genius...
like this book. I am not going be the guinea pig ok but just well is this proven....?

Amazon.com: Super Brain Power: 6 Keys to Unlocking Your Hidden Genius: Books: Jean Marie Stine


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## Ursa major (Sep 9, 2007)

The first way, Grasshopper, is to resist buying this book.  ;-)


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## j d worthington (Sep 9, 2007)

Creator said:


> Hmm I see... but what about those things like say unleashing the genius...
> like this book. I am not going be the guinea pig ok but just well is this proven....?
> 
> Amazon.com: Super Brain Power: 6 Keys to Unlocking Your Hidden Genius: Books: Jean Marie Stine


 
Have you taken a look at the other books she's been connected with? Hardly based on any sort of scientific background....

Jean Marie Stine - Penguin Group (USA) Authors - Penguin Group (USA)


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## HardScienceFan (Sep 9, 2007)

uhh



OUCH


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## Creator (Sep 10, 2007)

hey then what was the talk about ambidexterity..... They say that people who are right and left handed are a little smarter than their singled handed counterparts.


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## j d worthington (Sep 10, 2007)

Creator said:


> hey then what was the talk about ambidexterity..... They say that people who are right and left handed are a little smarter than their singled handed counterparts.


 
Now, that's one I've not heard before, and I rather seriously doubt it would be the case, as it's a different sort of brain function between intelligence and "handedness", as I understand it:

Handedness and Brain Lateralization

ScienceDaily: Yerkes Researchers Discover Basis For Determining Handedness In Chimpanzees

Drawing on The Right Side of The Conclusions: What Neuroscience Really Says About The Notion of Left & Right-Brained Humans.

Besides, the concept of "handedness" is rather seriously flawed in itself, as the majority of people are not "single-handed", but use one hand for certain functions, and the other for others, indicating that most people are, at least to a degree, normally ambidextrous....


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