It takes a great deal of self-consciousness to keep an eye on such things that feel like "obvious truths," just because you grew up in an environment that was reinforcing those misconceptions.
This article does not really debunk anything as it seem to use some very poor chains of reasoning:
"If we are using only 10% of our brains, that means a person would be fine if the other 90% of the brain got removed. 10% of the 1400g average brain is 140g—that’s the size of a sheep’s brain.4 Since I doubt sheep have their own 90% hidden potential myth, it makes no sense that humans have advanced so far as a civilization by using only part of their brains equivalent in size to a sheep’s brain."
1. That using 10% of brain means 90% can be removed. Where did that logic come from?
2. That size of the brain is important (i.e. the size of a sheep brain is relevant to human intelligence, this is a poor argument as an elephants brain is much larger than a human's)
Thanks for being attentive and spotting potential flaws in the article.
1. I don't really know how to answer this to you other than with "arithmetic."
2. Have you read the entire article? There is the "relative" part. Elephant's brain-to-body mass ratio is 1:560. And yes, brain size is important. Some small birds have 1:12 brain to body ratio, but that doesn't make them smarter than us.
> 1. I don't really know how to answer this to you other than with "arithmetic."
Supposing I only use 10% of my brain at any given instant, but it's a different 10% each time, then removing any of my brain would have a negative impact on me.
I kinda agree with the article just not the reasoning that got to the outcome.
1. Saying we use 10% of our brains doesn't imply 90% of the mass is unnecessary. It could be saying 90% of the electrical activity is unnecessary, or 90% of the synapses are unnecessary. I don't believe the myth, but doing a hard logic stop from 10% to that means 90% of weight is unnecessary is not implied by the statement we are arguing against. It's nothing to do with arithmetic.
2. If you look at the article one of the 1st headings is "Size Does Not Matter". So does it matter or not? When you look closer the stand out features of humans is a wrinkly grey matter, so surface area (i.e. grey matter) seems important and mass based arguments are a correlation to that. (also big bodies have more sensory area so their is an inverse correlation to body size too)
Anyway, I think the point of the myth is to say humans have more potential than their default. If you take some Ritalin or Cola you might agree that the natural brain can be souped up a bit cognitively (not by 10x). Experience and learning also gets more out of an (nearly) identically sized brain too. You can't take an experience brain and cut half of it out to become a toddler again though
Thanks for the clarification. Now it's clearer why you wrote the first comment.
1. I think you and I have different understanding of that myth. I was referring to the fact that people think 90% is not used at all. I might have done a poor job of emphasizing that thing, that's why we are discussing this now.
2. I haven't looked at it that way. It's an instance when the paragraph name interfered with some important concepts in the entire article... The point in "Size Does Not Matter" that I have envisioned is that being a such a small fraction of the body, the brain consumes unproportionately more energy.
The point of Ritalin and Cola is that those increase the blood glucose level, which aids in cognitive processes.
> I think the point of the myth is to say humans have more potential than their default.
The point of the myth is to say humans have more potential than their default ... and if you buy my book / miracle potion / herbal supplement / a ticket to my 3 day motivational lecture you can unlock yours!
Of course on the contrary brain size may not matter much at all. Crows can count and display many other signs of shocking intelligence despite having tiny brains. Crows may be smarter than elephants, but if so then why would evolution select elephants to have all that extra worthless metabolic load? Brain matter is costly in both energy consumption and nutrients required to grow it. It's unlikely that elephants would have hypertrophied brains if all that brain matter were doing nothing.
At the end of the day I think crows and elephants show us how much we don't know.
I'm generally skeptical of any study of elephants because they're obviously a social species and they've been very badly mistreated for many generations. Even in cases where an individual elephant may receive a lot of attention and care from compassionate humans, that elephant may still be deprived of a healthy development by being deprived of other healthy elephants to live with. And even in cases where a group of wild elephants may have lived happily undisturbed for generations, those elephants would be inherently difficult to study in detail.
That's an excellent point. How intelligent would a human seem after years of abuse and solitary confinement? Solitary confinement alone can reduce humans to near catatonia.
There are 2 sides to this. On one hand people have undergone total or subtotal hemispherectomies with minimal to no changes to their cognitive function, or other personality aspects. On the other hand this doesn't imply that you can remove anything "up to" 50%. Some bits are "make or break".
To make a CPU analogy, plenty of CPUs can (are designed to) function just fine with disabled cores. But certain units cannot be disabled and still have a functional CPU. The IMC or chip interconnect may take little die space but would leave the CPU dead in the water if removed.
Not all parts of the brain are created equal, not 100% of the brain is there for us to "use" (as in we're not consciously using them, they provide autonomous "built-in" functions), and the parts that we consciously make use of might very well be underused. Few people would ever need to use at once all parts of the brain for all possible processing needs like all types of sensorial input processing, all types of memory memory, all types or reasoning, empathy, multitasking, etc. So they'll use a few at a time. Maybe 10%.
There probably is a significant base load and I don't think we can measure neuronal activity as well as we like to pretend. Imagine being consciously as good in trigonometry as your eye-brain...
I believe size has an effect, elephants are pretty smart, and there is a general trend in the animal kingdom that would confirm this. Structural density is important too as well as type of brain matter. Some say humans are limited in head size because of birth. Look at how funny babies look with their disproportionately large head. But density is probably more an issue for humans than for elephants.
The first deduction is probably ridiculous although we know that parts of the brain can be repurposed for other tasks if needed. We know there are completely functioning people that lost half their brain, just had to relearn some things.
I find this to be a really funny assertion by the author. It requires assuming that either all brain matter is completely fungible or that people claiming we use only 10% of our brains mean we use a very specific 10% of the brain and simply don't use the remaining 90%.
The best part about Haskell is that I can turn my brain off 90% of the time I'm developing in it, at the cost of using it a bit more the other 10% of the time.
In JS, if you ever lose focus for a moment, you'll have to work really hard to solve all the problems you just caused.
Not sure how this is on the front-page. The article chases to debunk something that is only used as a metaphor for the capacity of the mind. IMO the idea that we only use 10% of our brain is oversimplified way to get the attention of a child when conveying the minds power. For example, you only activate 10% of your brain when reasoning a difficult math problem, or recalling a memory. I don't think anyone ever asserted that 90% of your brain is turned off.
> It probably is true that on average, only 10% of neurons are firing at a given instant in time.
This makes sense. A lot of utilization in nature follows a Pareto distribution, where frequency of use leads to an increase in frequency of use. It's likely that only 10% of roads are in use at any given time, but that doesn't mean that you can eliminate 90% of roads and still have the same capabilities.
It's not feasible to utilize 100% of ones brain because there's a fundamental limit to the number of simultaneous activities we can undertake. You might be able to juggle, play an RTS game, figure out the flavor components of a dish, and recite the US Constitution backwards, from memory. What you can't do is all these things simultaneously.
> If we are using only 10% of our brains, that means a person would be fine if the other 90% of the brain got removed [...] There are instances in history when people were injured and got parts of their brain removed (although not as close as even 10%)
And there are examples of people who lost up to 95% of their brain and still seem pretty normal. (Actually, some are claimed to be be smarter than average, leading to the suggestion that the rest of the brain is just cramping our style, but that's probably an exaggeration.) [https://www.gwern.net/Hydrocephalus]
> If we are using only 10% of our brains, that means a person would be fine if the other 90% of the brain got remove
>> Actually you can do much better. There are people who had 50% of their brain removed and were fine.
When the article mentioned brain size, it reminded me of a story about Einstein's brain.
He donated his brain to science and one of the first things noted after his death was that his brain was roughly average sized. This was a big setback for the "brain size correlates with IQ" crowd and was one, of many data points, showing that brain size and volume did not correlate with IQ.
Years later, as we got better understandings of the brain and its sub-components, it was realized that he was actually MISSING a part of his brain. I forget the exact piece but what was most interesting is that it was the portion of the brain that "pushes" up against another of the brain believed to be used for visualizing problems.
Because he was missing the first component, it allowed the visualization portion to grow to roughly double the size of a normal person's. It's thought that this "supercharged" his ability to mentally visualize complex physics and math problems in a way average people couldn't.
To me, it's fascinating that missing part of you might lead other parts of you to becoming more efficient and/or more powerful.
Wikipedia has an article on Enstein's brain that says that, because a region of his brain was vacant, neurons in that part of the brain may have communicated better. It also mentions Einstein used to say he always thinks visually, but from what I can tell from the article that doesn't have something to do with an enlargement of the area of the brain that is responsible for visualisation. That's how I read the below anyway. Also note that the examination that concluded a part of his brain was missing was based on photographs of the brain and not a direct autopsy.
Autopsy
Harvey had reported that Einstein had no parietal operculum in either hemisphere,[12] but this finding has been disputed.[13] Photographs of the brain show an enlarged Sylvian fissure. In 1999, further analysis by a team at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario revealed that his parietal operculum region in the inferior frontal gyrus in the frontal lobe of the brain was vacant. Also absent was part of a bordering region called the lateral sulcus (Sylvian fissure). Researchers at McMaster University speculated that the vacancy may have enabled neurons in this part of his brain to communicate better. "This unusual brain anatomy...[missing part of the Sylvian fissure]... may explain why Einstein thought the way he did," said Professor Sandra Witelson who led the research published in The Lancet. This study was based on photographs of the whole brain made at autopsy in 1955 by Harvey and not a direct examination of the brain. Einstein himself claimed that he thought visually rather than verbally. Professor Laurie Hall of Cambridge University, commenting on the study, said, "To say there is a definite link is one bridge too far, at the moment. So far, the case isn't proven. But magnetic resonance and other new technologies are allowing us to start to probe those very questions."[14]
Selection bias may have influenced published results, which means that results showing differences between Einstein's brain and other brains tend to get published while results showing that in many respects Einstein's brain was like other brains tend to be neglected. Researchers knew which brain was Einstein's and which were controls, allowing possible conscious or unconscious bias and preventing impartial research.
I'd think that, indeed, one has to be very careful about confirmation bias in this kind of study. Not least because Einstein was very famous and having some grounds to claim that "he was a genious because of how his brain was made" is something that can grant some publicity to a researcher's otherwise obscure work.
It's a metaphor for general ability, not a concrete estimate of actual physical brain usage. People who use it tend to mean "You, yes you, could amazing and magical things if you were more focussed."
That's very unlikely to be literally true in the way they hope. But given how poorly most people are educated, and how often they're fed lies and distortions in adulthood, there's likely to be some metaphorical truth to it.
So the population as a whole certainly could be smarter, more aware, more effective, and probably more creative too.
But it's not something you could easily put a number on. Certainly a one dimensional measurement like IQ won't capture it.
Evolution doesn't waste resources unnecessarily. The human brain requires substantial energy to operate, why would brains have evolved they way they have unless there was a purpose for very close to all the power of the brain?
38 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 31.6 ms ] threadI read through it every couple of years and am amazed at the number of things considered "common knowledge" which are completely untrue.
It takes a great deal of self-consciousness to keep an eye on such things that feel like "obvious truths," just because you grew up in an environment that was reinforcing those misconceptions.
https://xkcd.com/843/
"If we are using only 10% of our brains, that means a person would be fine if the other 90% of the brain got removed. 10% of the 1400g average brain is 140g—that’s the size of a sheep’s brain.4 Since I doubt sheep have their own 90% hidden potential myth, it makes no sense that humans have advanced so far as a civilization by using only part of their brains equivalent in size to a sheep’s brain."
1. That using 10% of brain means 90% can be removed. Where did that logic come from?
2. That size of the brain is important (i.e. the size of a sheep brain is relevant to human intelligence, this is a poor argument as an elephants brain is much larger than a human's)
1. I don't really know how to answer this to you other than with "arithmetic."
2. Have you read the entire article? There is the "relative" part. Elephant's brain-to-body mass ratio is 1:560. And yes, brain size is important. Some small birds have 1:12 brain to body ratio, but that doesn't make them smarter than us.
Supposing I only use 10% of my brain at any given instant, but it's a different 10% each time, then removing any of my brain would have a negative impact on me.
1. Saying we use 10% of our brains doesn't imply 90% of the mass is unnecessary. It could be saying 90% of the electrical activity is unnecessary, or 90% of the synapses are unnecessary. I don't believe the myth, but doing a hard logic stop from 10% to that means 90% of weight is unnecessary is not implied by the statement we are arguing against. It's nothing to do with arithmetic.
2. If you look at the article one of the 1st headings is "Size Does Not Matter". So does it matter or not? When you look closer the stand out features of humans is a wrinkly grey matter, so surface area (i.e. grey matter) seems important and mass based arguments are a correlation to that. (also big bodies have more sensory area so their is an inverse correlation to body size too)
Anyway, I think the point of the myth is to say humans have more potential than their default. If you take some Ritalin or Cola you might agree that the natural brain can be souped up a bit cognitively (not by 10x). Experience and learning also gets more out of an (nearly) identically sized brain too. You can't take an experience brain and cut half of it out to become a toddler again though
1. I think you and I have different understanding of that myth. I was referring to the fact that people think 90% is not used at all. I might have done a poor job of emphasizing that thing, that's why we are discussing this now.
2. I haven't looked at it that way. It's an instance when the paragraph name interfered with some important concepts in the entire article... The point in "Size Does Not Matter" that I have envisioned is that being a such a small fraction of the body, the brain consumes unproportionately more energy.
The point of Ritalin and Cola is that those increase the blood glucose level, which aids in cognitive processes.
The point of the myth is to say humans have more potential than their default ... and if you buy my book / miracle potion / herbal supplement / a ticket to my 3 day motivational lecture you can unlock yours!
Obligatory: https://xkcd.com/638/
Of course on the contrary brain size may not matter much at all. Crows can count and display many other signs of shocking intelligence despite having tiny brains. Crows may be smarter than elephants, but if so then why would evolution select elephants to have all that extra worthless metabolic load? Brain matter is costly in both energy consumption and nutrients required to grow it. It's unlikely that elephants would have hypertrophied brains if all that brain matter were doing nothing.
At the end of the day I think crows and elephants show us how much we don't know.
To make a CPU analogy, plenty of CPUs can (are designed to) function just fine with disabled cores. But certain units cannot be disabled and still have a functional CPU. The IMC or chip interconnect may take little die space but would leave the CPU dead in the water if removed.
Not all parts of the brain are created equal, not 100% of the brain is there for us to "use" (as in we're not consciously using them, they provide autonomous "built-in" functions), and the parts that we consciously make use of might very well be underused. Few people would ever need to use at once all parts of the brain for all possible processing needs like all types of sensorial input processing, all types of memory memory, all types or reasoning, empathy, multitasking, etc. So they'll use a few at a time. Maybe 10%.
I believe size has an effect, elephants are pretty smart, and there is a general trend in the animal kingdom that would confirm this. Structural density is important too as well as type of brain matter. Some say humans are limited in head size because of birth. Look at how funny babies look with their disproportionately large head. But density is probably more an issue for humans than for elephants.
The first deduction is probably ridiculous although we know that parts of the brain can be repurposed for other tasks if needed. We know there are completely functioning people that lost half their brain, just had to relearn some things.
I find this to be a really funny assertion by the author. It requires assuming that either all brain matter is completely fungible or that people claiming we use only 10% of our brains mean we use a very specific 10% of the brain and simply don't use the remaining 90%.
I suspect the thought process goes, if you're using <=10%, 90% is unused. And whats the difference between unused and not there?
We're always using a % of our brain, but it's constantly shifting around which regions are active.
In JS, if you ever lose focus for a moment, you'll have to work really hard to solve all the problems you just caused.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_percent_of_the_brain_myth
* It probably is true that on average, only 10% of neurons are firing at a given instant in time.
* Lay-people misunderstood this to mean the other 90% aren't doing anything,
* When actually, if all 100% were firing there'd no longer be a differential and the brain would stop working.
This makes sense. A lot of utilization in nature follows a Pareto distribution, where frequency of use leads to an increase in frequency of use. It's likely that only 10% of roads are in use at any given time, but that doesn't mean that you can eliminate 90% of roads and still have the same capabilities.
It's not feasible to utilize 100% of ones brain because there's a fundamental limit to the number of simultaneous activities we can undertake. You might be able to juggle, play an RTS game, figure out the flavor components of a dish, and recite the US Constitution backwards, from memory. What you can't do is all these things simultaneously.
Actually you can do much better. There are people who had 50% of their brain removed and were fine. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemispherectomy]
And there are examples of people who lost up to 95% of their brain and still seem pretty normal. (Actually, some are claimed to be be smarter than average, leading to the suggestion that the rest of the brain is just cramping our style, but that's probably an exaggeration.) [https://www.gwern.net/Hydrocephalus]
50% is less than 90%, that's not 'much better'.
>[https://www.gwern.net/Hydrocephalus]
It's amusing you link to gwern's page where he mostly debunks those cases.
A better argument would be, that (AFAIK) no-one has ever found a large group of idle neurons, nor do neurons only function 10% of the time.
He donated his brain to science and one of the first things noted after his death was that his brain was roughly average sized. This was a big setback for the "brain size correlates with IQ" crowd and was one, of many data points, showing that brain size and volume did not correlate with IQ.
Years later, as we got better understandings of the brain and its sub-components, it was realized that he was actually MISSING a part of his brain. I forget the exact piece but what was most interesting is that it was the portion of the brain that "pushes" up against another of the brain believed to be used for visualizing problems.
Because he was missing the first component, it allowed the visualization portion to grow to roughly double the size of a normal person's. It's thought that this "supercharged" his ability to mentally visualize complex physics and math problems in a way average people couldn't.
To me, it's fascinating that missing part of you might lead other parts of you to becoming more efficient and/or more powerful.
EDIT: Fixed some grammar.
Autopsy
Harvey had reported that Einstein had no parietal operculum in either hemisphere,[12] but this finding has been disputed.[13] Photographs of the brain show an enlarged Sylvian fissure. In 1999, further analysis by a team at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario revealed that his parietal operculum region in the inferior frontal gyrus in the frontal lobe of the brain was vacant. Also absent was part of a bordering region called the lateral sulcus (Sylvian fissure). Researchers at McMaster University speculated that the vacancy may have enabled neurons in this part of his brain to communicate better. "This unusual brain anatomy...[missing part of the Sylvian fissure]... may explain why Einstein thought the way he did," said Professor Sandra Witelson who led the research published in The Lancet. This study was based on photographs of the whole brain made at autopsy in 1955 by Harvey and not a direct examination of the brain. Einstein himself claimed that he thought visually rather than verbally. Professor Laurie Hall of Cambridge University, commenting on the study, said, "To say there is a definite link is one bridge too far, at the moment. So far, the case isn't proven. But magnetic resonance and other new technologies are allowing us to start to probe those very questions."[14]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein%27s_brain
Also, note:
Selection bias may have influenced published results, which means that results showing differences between Einstein's brain and other brains tend to get published while results showing that in many respects Einstein's brain was like other brains tend to be neglected. Researchers knew which brain was Einstein's and which were controls, allowing possible conscious or unconscious bias and preventing impartial research.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein%27s_brain#Crit...
I'd think that, indeed, one has to be very careful about confirmation bias in this kind of study. Not least because Einstein was very famous and having some grounds to claim that "he was a genious because of how his brain was made" is something that can grant some publicity to a researcher's otherwise obscure work.
That's very unlikely to be literally true in the way they hope. But given how poorly most people are educated, and how often they're fed lies and distortions in adulthood, there's likely to be some metaphorical truth to it.
So the population as a whole certainly could be smarter, more aware, more effective, and probably more creative too.
But it's not something you could easily put a number on. Certainly a one dimensional measurement like IQ won't capture it.