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An alternative look at one claim in "Welcome To Your Brain"
from "brain
authorities" Sandra Aamode and Sam Wang (Ph.D)
I applaud any
efforts by anyone, professional or otherwise, to bring
clarity to the table in regards to the most important
organ in our body-- our brain---
But let us not
confuse promotional slogans or ideas used to promote
commercial enterprises, such as a new brain book, from
readily observable facts, rational thought, and
common sense...
In their blog and press releases, these authors boldly assert (such as in the Publisher's Weekly Review): "Welcome To Your Brain...Neuroscientists Aamodt, editor-in-chief of Nature Neuroscience, and Wang, of Princeton University....tackle such potentially controversial topics as whether men and women have different brains...and whether intelligence is shaped more by genes or environment....Distinguishing their book are sidebars that explode myths—no, we do not use only 10% of our brain's potential but nearly all of it..." This myth busting claim to fame is again touted in a recent radio appearance: "Neuroscientist Dr. Sam Wang discussed the human brain and how it's wired to experience various phenomena. Made of 3 lbs. of tissue with 100 billion neurons, the brain acts as an information processing device and filter. The truth is, we use all parts of our brain, not just 10% of it (a myth propagated by Dale Carnegie), he noted. "
Turns out, if you
actually examine Dr. Wang's claim about how much brain
you probably use-- you discover that Dale Carnegie was
actually much closer to the real truth.
Mr. Wang states makes the incorrect assumption: "our brain always runs on 12 watts" as proof of 100% use of one's neural capacity. (Coast To Coast AM, Feb. 2008) This is no more true than saying every 12 watt appliance does equal work, or that every 12 watt appliance works at 100% efficiency. In fact, you can have a 12 watt appliance that draws current, broken or not, and that does absolute ZERO amount of work, and merely overheats and sits there useless.
Any machine can do
zero work, or all it's potential work-- all while
drawing the same current. Current draw is meaningless
in relation to work done, not only within one
structure, but across structures using the same
current.
I am sure many of us have several of these examples in our homes right now, or perhaps on top of someone's shoulder's that we know.
I have a 650
watt computer, that at times does absolutely
NOTHING with all that energy, as I am sure most of us
have seen. When this machine is brought to a dead
halt by a faulty program or virus, are we bold enough
to proclaim--
"My computer is
using 100% of it's potential- cause it's using the same
amount of watts it did when it was actually doing
something!!"
If we use 100% of our brain-- does this imply that we use all of our neural connections all of the time, simultaneously? That's what 100% would require.
I can't think of a
SINGLE THING that works at 100% capacity or near this,
except perhaps my ice cube tray.
If so, one would never observe brain activity variation seen clearly in PET and functional MRI-- you can't have fluctuation in activity and state "100% use (or nearly) all the time"-- at the same time.
Further, these scans
themselves only indicate general activity-- and they
say nothing about potential fulfilled.
Do you use 100% of your car? Always drive at 120MPH with a fully packed trunk and full tank of gas and six passengers? 100% of your muscles? Always running at full speed carrying 100 pounds of weight around your neck? "It is a myth that we only use 10% of our human brain." It is common to hear this statement, alarmingly even from a few people who label themselves as "scientific" or as researchers. In actuality, such a comment as above, is more misleading itself than the so-called myth of unused brain potential. Think. You no more use 90% of your brain potential than you use 90% of your muscle potential all of the time.
You no more use all
of your brain all of the time than you use 100% of your
lung capacity sitting at your computer keyboard.
To say that we use all of our brain, would be like saying Arnold Schwarzenegger or Lou Firigno even when at the height of their training, or as they were growing, they were using every single muscle and fiber in their body to full capacity-- 24 hours a day, every second of every day. You no more use all of your brain all of the time than you use all of your car all of the time; that you always drive at the full potential of your Honda or Ford; that you always drive at the top speed of your car; that your trunk and seats are always filled to capacity; that you have even figured out and daily employ every single way in which you could use your car, including hauling sacks of carrots and turnips on your roof at the same time you get ice cream and gas at 7-11, and pick up a couple of hitchhikers on the way.
I mean--
WHAT EXACTLY IS 100%
?!? What is "ALL OF YOUR BRAIN" even mean?
Is there even such a
thing??? Especially when measuring of all things,
brain potential?
The mere suggestion
that you can even approach using "all of your
brain, or nearly so" is at the most elementary level
completely absurd, if not downright depressing!
Ow!
To say that we use all of our brain ignores the fact that you keep losing your car keys all the time, even though its perfectly possible to train yourself- within your potential unfulfilled- to methodically hang them in the same place every time you walk in the front door.
Are we SO BUSY with
other things that we can make new good habits and break
old bad ones--?
Can we not write a
book, compose a symphony, learn to play golf--- because
100% of our brain is being used watching Good Morning
America?
That would be
sad.
Sir John Eccles has stated his feelings on the infinite potential of the human brain, and he won the Noble prize. Such a statement that "We use all of our brain all of the time" or "It is a myth that we only use 10% of our brain" are both misleading and unhelpful uninspiring skeptical crumbs with barely a grain of truth- As well as not even being accurate statements regarding usage of the human brain. Humans have an unlimited capacity to learn. Unlike computers, no human brain has ever said: "Hard drive full." A simple look at brain scans will show us that the brain modulates dramatically from one moment to the next in regards to its activity and usage. Here it is then, on the screen of Functional MRI machines and Pet scans, incontrovertible evidence that we do not use all of our brain all of the time. To say "We use all of our brain all of the time" says nothing about the potential of human intelligence, creativity, and problem solving. Such a skeptical rebuttal of the vast potential of the human think machine implies that we have reached our limits of brain potential- probably the most harmful dead end notion of all. We haven't even gotten close. Our frontal lobes have been culturally and socially lobotomized. At this stage of evolution, we are simply still Apes With Pencils. That's actually very good news. Why do some such "experts" delight it saying "It is a MYTH that we only use 10% of our brain." ?
Publicity.
Beyond that...
It's the old, "I know more than YOU Game. It's an ego thing. It's a reptile brain on-upmanship thing. It's the old "I am smarter than you, because plain old folk without a DIPLOMA IN BRAIN SCIENCE have this saying--- and plain old folk can't be right. Let me tell you how it really is.... " "It is a myth that you only use 10% of your brain" is no more helpful and informative than saying, "The moon is not made of green cheese". It tells us very little, indeed.
We no more use all
or nearly all of our brain as do millions of couch
potatoes use all of their muscles sitting in front of
the boob tube six hours a day.
So, as it turns out, to say that "We only use 10% of our brain, only 10% of our brain potential"- this is actually an infinitely optimistic, as well as a considerably reasonable and thoughtful perspective of the possibilities that reside inside our craniums. It is a helpful generalization and observation by and for the lay person, and although not literally precise, it reflects upon the reality that owners of a human think box have an enormous mental potential from which to draw, from which we as individuals and as a human culture, often as not, ignore.
And YET ANOTHER
ANALOGY about How Much Brain We Use:
Two Gardens, Two Gardeners. Each is given 50 packets of flower and vegetable seeds. Each is given a 1/3 acre plot of ground, and a shovel, and access to water. Gardener A opens his seed packets and scatters all the seeds evenly over the entire plot without deep tilling the soil, without burying the seeds to the optimum depth for each. Gardener B isolates the seeds, combines planting of symbiotic species (marigolds next to tomatoes for example), plants each seed at the optimum depth. Gardener A walks away and leaves watering to mother nature. Gardener B monitors the weather, and irrigates the garden for optimum watering for each planted area as needed. Gardener A never pulls the competitive weeds. Gardener B carefully weeds the garden so the desired plants have access to the soil, light, and nutrients. Garden A yields few flowers and vegetables, and many weeds. Garden B yields twenty times the number of desired flowers, vegetables. Both garden plots are fully used.
Both Gardener A and
Gardener B use
100% of their gardens.
Superficially.
Both garden plots are covered with seeds, and have plants growing-- yet: equally, Gardener A in practical use, used a fraction of his garden, since area was taken over my weed plants, and failed to make use of available light and nutrients.
In reality, Gardener
A used far less of his garden than Gardener B.
Indeed, HOW one uses
one's available space truly determines HOW MUCH one is
using.
It's not just a
question of an observation of superficial volume at
use.
The notion that current draw (a constant 12 watts) somehow reflects total and normal brain function, much less fulfilling available brain potential-- is downright ridiculous.
It's like saying
everybody is assigned and uses 12 packs of seeds in
their garden, so everybody is using 100% of their seed
potential.
What is more important, and probably more relevant, is why someone would try so hard to disprove a sensible notion such as "we don't approach our full brain potential, we only use 10% of our brain"--- a clearly useful METAPHOR, as well as a reasonable reflection of our cultural lack of imagination, rational intellect, and, need to conform to conventional wisdom and dependence on old ideas. I.e.-- we really don't use our brains as they could be used, but rather vegetate and blindly watch TV and follow charismatic authority figures and swallow ideas whole without really chewing them up, digesting them, or alternatively spitting out those that are indigestible in the first place. What is at the root of the issue of "how much brain do we use" is not wattage, or that "we use all parts of our brain"-- but rather, how are the neurons connected? Why can one person with the same brain volume as another solve a puzzle, while another remains clueless? Mr. Wang himself tells us that people now do better on IQ tests at the end of the 20th Century than they did at the end of the 19th Century. The problem with this observation, is that it directly contradicts his statement that we use 100% of our brain-- I don't think there is any evidence that Joe Smith born in 1980 was born with a bigger brain than Frank Brown born in 1880. And if they were both using 100% of their brain, how does one explain better brain function in the year 2000? ******************************* And to all the "experts" who feel they know more than you or I because they have a framed piece of paper hanging on their office wall----
I learned my lesson
about not bowing down and falling over and
relinquishing my judgment in the presence of "EXPERTS"
last year after falling down my basement stairs and
rupturing a couple of discs in my spine.
I duly went to my local resident spinal surgeon, complete with 2000 square feet of office space, two million dollars of x-ray equipment, 5 receptionists, and 10 diplomas proudly displayed on his wall. He declared me permanently injured, and requiring of nothing less than removal of portions of my vertebrae to remove a disc, replace it with a titanium spacer, and then fusion of several vertebrae with titanium rods. He then said I would certainly further need future spinal surgery in a few years. I then actually used MORE brain power than this expert, and walked out of his office never to return, if more brain power means not spending $50,000 on a very risky and needless surgery. A year later, without any surgery whatsoever, I am completely healed and have totally normal spinal function and movement. Beware the experts who "KNOW" everything--- they may not. |
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