Question About The Human Brain

Anderton Prime

Anderton Prime

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Hey everyone. I'm currently reading Stephen King's new novel, Cell. In it, people receive some strange pulse through their cellphones that apparently strips away every ounce of civilized behaviour and leaves people in a primitive mindset where their only instinct is the prime directive to survive.

As well, one of the characters in the novel theorizes that we only ever use about 2% of our brain capacity, and that 98% is untapped. But I remember reading somewhere that this was a myth and that in fact we use much more of our brains. So who's telling the lie? I know this is a fictional novel, but in it the character is putting this forth and it seems like we're supposed to believe it as readers, as though it's common knowledge.
 
I don't think we know how much of our brains we do use specifically, but with regards to what's closer, I'm not 100% sure and don't have the time to do a deep search into it right now, but I don't think it's possible to measure our brain used all thought our life, at different points in the day our brains are more stimulated or less stmulated and the more stimulated it is, the more of it we use at that time.

With regards to capacty, how much information we car store, I think that's been proven that in a lifetime we use up only a tiny percentage of what the brain is capable of storing.
 
I read about a case a few years ago of a girl, or young woman, who was completely normal, even a 'A' student, who had been taken for tests at hospital after complaining about a headache that wouldn't go away. When the results came back from a brain scan, it was found that she practically had no brain!
It turned out that she'd had a virus when she was a baby that ate away at her brain, leaving very little of it except a thin 'shell' around the inside of her scull. What little brain material she had left had managed to function as normal for most of her life.

I can't remember whether i read about it or saw a TV program on it, i'll try and google it....
 
The number I've commonly heard is around 10% of human brain capacity is used. What people never seem to bother understanding is that the 10% is what's used for conscious thought, while the balance (40%) is used for unconscious and autonomous systems like breathing, pulse rate, vision, etc. as well as memory storage. I believe that there is also approximately 100% redundancy in the brain meaning that the primary uses add up to 50% and then there is 50% in reserve to combat the effects of aging and injury.
 
I don't think theres any fixed values that can be associated with the brain, each persons would show different results. But like I said, you can't meansure how much of the brain your using 24 hours a day, every day of the week every week of the year and so on. We can store far, far more information in our brain than the average person will ever accumulate in a lifetime, but storage is just one aspect of brain usage. Also we know theres plenty of our brain is unused since functions can be transferred from one area of the brain to another. I don't think our brain combats ageing, going senile is associated with ageing but ageing it'self does not cause it. Your average older persons brain scan can show up as normal as a 20 year olds brain scan, the functions unless they've had an accident and part of the brain has been damaged, don't transfer to other parts of the brain with ageing.
 
TheCracker
I read about a case a few years ago of a girl, or young woman, who was completely normal, even a 'A' student, who had been taken for tests at hospital after complaining about a headache that wouldn't go away. When the results came back from a brain scan, it was found that she practically had no brain!
It turned out that she'd had a virus when she was a baby that ate away at her brain, leaving very little of it except a thin 'shell' around the inside of her scull. What little brain material she had left had managed to function as normal for most of her life.

I can't remember whether i read about it or saw a TV program on it, i'll try and google it....
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Yes - she was a nurse. I believe I may have posted the story on here somewhere. Edit: Gah! Found the thread I posted it, but no off-site reference...

Anyway, we use 100% of our brains. If we didn't, we'd have had the portions we don't use "evolved out" (they take energy but do nothing = waste of energy = counterproductive to survival chances). What it's all used for, on the other hand, is a more complicated story.
 
Famine

Anyway, we use 100% of our brains. If we didn't, we'd have had the portions we don't use "evolved out" (they take energy but do nothing = waste of energy = counterproductive to survival chances). What it's all used for, on the other hand, is a more complicated story.
Click to expand...

Ah cool, thats what I wanted to hear!

...so damn frustrating when your in the middle of a science test and the only thing you know is that you're not doing your best yet...

No just kidding but it's so annoying to hear people say I only use 10% of my brains...lol...
 
Basicaly all our brain is active, but that doesn't mean it's all running at 100% capability. We've never seen anyone use their brains to their full capability, I think when most people talk about how much of our brain they use, that's what they're referring to, although through our life, we'll use every part of our brain in different situations. But also going back to my last post, each part of you brain has the capacity to take over extra functions,ie if you damage part of your brain that covers hand to eye coordination, a different part of the brain can take that role and learn it again so it's quite obvious that we don't run at full capacity or capability.
 

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