Morgan Freeman can make anything sound legit no matter scientifically farfetched . In Lucy for example , which premier last Friday , his character mention the “ fact ” that humans only habituate about 10 percentage of our brain ’s resources . This is very , very improper ! But why does it keep getting tossed around ? And how much of our brain are we actually using ?
Origins of the 10 Percent Myth
The notion that humans only operate at a ten percent of their theoretical capacity has been floating around since the recent Victorian Era , when forward-looking music was still tottering about with pseudo - science like phrenology ( skull skill ) or osteopathic manipulative medication ( holistics ) . And like most urban legends , the theme of the 10 percent myth has no less than a half dozen potential source .
The early potential germ come from the work of Jean Pierre Flourens , one of the institute fathers of modern cognitive sciences , inventor of anesthesia , and the man credited with proving that cognizance repose in the brainpower not the heart . His pioneer piece of work in demonstrate the regional functionality of the genius ’s hemispheres often characterized a expectant portion of the intellectual hemispheres as the “ silent lens cortex , ” which may have influence subsequent researchers into believe that this region , now be intimate as the affiliation cortex , has no function .
Another root of the myth could be theEnergy Reserve Theoryquackery , put forth by Harvard psychologists William James and Boris Sidis in the 1890s . Their research , which consist of heighten Sidis ’ prodigy son William ( the small fry had a reported IQ of 250 - 300 , roughly double Einstein of 160 ) in an accelerated developmental environment . The investigator take the child ’s monumental intellect as proof that every man must contain some secret backlog of genial and phsyical energy . In his treatsie , The vitality of Men , James tell , “ We are make usage of only a small part of our possible mental and strong-arm resources . ” This whimsy was later popularize by Lowell Thomas in a foreword to Dale Carnegie ’s How to Win Friends and Influence People : “ Professor William James of Harvard used to say that the average man develop only ten pct of his latent mental ability . ”
The 10 percent myth received another credibleness hike in the 1920s and ’ 30s through the body of work of American Psychologist Karl Lashley . Through his endeavor to measure the relationship between head mass and part , Lashley discovered that rats could relearn specific tasks after go equipment casualty to their cerebral cortex . However , our understanding of brain function at that fourth dimension was still disgustingly crude , and the connections he evoke between mass action ( that learning is governed by the intellectual cerebral mantle as a whole , not specific neighborhood atop it ) and equipotentiality ( that receptive perceptual experience can be relearned by other regions of the brain after price ) have gift procession to the myth .
How We Know We Use More Than 10 Percent of Our Brains
Thankfully , the field of neuroscience has advanced by saltation and bounds since the first half of last century and we have come to learn that , like sperm , every brain jail cell is sanctified .
The human brain constitutes 1/40th of a human ’s overall mass , on medium , but consumes a full fifth part of our Calorie . From an evolutionary point of view , wherein every other organ in our bodies has been bred and of course choose over eon for efficiency , having a brain that sucks down 20 percent of our daily DOE reserves for 10 percent efficiency plainly makes no sense .
Clinical research over the past 80 years has stomach out similar grounds . Even a small degree of damage to any region of your Lady Jane Grey matter — either from stroke , injury , or disease — can leave in catastrophic neurologic decline . “ Numerous eccentric of brain imaging studies show that no domain of the mastermind is completely still or inactive , ” Dr. Rachel C. Vreeman and Dr. Aaron E. Carrollwrote in a study of medical myth . “ Detailed probing of the brain has flush it to identify the ‘ non - functioning ’ 90 percent . ”
Conversely , electrical stimulation therapy have yet to expose any obscure reserves of intellect , thoughthe practice is demo hope for treating epilepsyand a small number of other neurological conditions . A 2008 study published inScientific Americanby Barry Gordon , a brain doctor of the John Hopkins School of Medicine , states unequivocally that “ we apply nearly every part of the brain , and that [ most of ] the brain is active almost all the prison term . ” In fact , inquiry with MRI and other tomography technologies have shown that almost all of the brain is active almost all of the time — even during menial or routine tasks .
“ Let ’s put it this way , ” he told Scientific American . “ The brain map three percent of the body ’s free weight and apply 20 percent of the body ’s vim . ”
So What Would Happen If We Actually Did Only Use 10 Percent of Our Brains?
countenance ’s say for a moment that transfer 90 percent of your brain somehow would n’t kill you outright , what would take place ? According to the University of Washington , the results are n’t pretty :
If the average human mind count 1,400 grams ( about 3 lb ) and 90 % of it was take , that would leave 140 gram ( about 0.3 lb ) of brain tissue . That ’s about the sizing of a sheep ’s brain . It is well lie with that hurt to a relatively small area of the brain , such as that do by a stroke , may cause annihilating impairment . Certain neurologic disorderliness , such as Parkinson ’s Disease , also affect only specific area of the brain . The price due to these conditions is far less than damage to 90 % of the genius .
That ’s correct , take away 90 per centum of your brain and you ’re officially reclassify as a sheep .
So when you see Scarlett Johansson gaining powers of psychokinesis and beyond as she unlock more and more of her genius ’s potential , know that all she ’s really tapping into are one screenwriter ’s flight of fancy . [ Britannica – Wiki1,2 – Scientific American – About – John Hopkins University – News . Au – University of Washington ]
Health
Daily Newsletter
Get the honorable tech , scientific discipline , and culture news in your inbox daily .
News from the future , deliver to your present tense .
You May Also Like
