”We humans are only using 10% of our brain!!!!!!” bla bla bla. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard this dumb myth, especially because I thought everyone knows better by now. But Hollywood movies like “Lucy” reinforce this over and over again.
I sometimes wonder why people think it’s a good idea to get their scientific knowledge from the movie industry …
Anyway, yes, it’s a myth and most articles I stumbled upon blamed the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie for it because it says:
Professor William James of Harvard used to say that the average person develops only 10 percent of his latent mental ability. Dale Carnegie, by helping business men and women to develop their latent possibilities, created one of the most significant movements in adult education
(Source)
And who is that “Professor William James”? The other culprit everyone blames:
We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources. In some persons this sense of being cut off from their rightful resources is extreme.
(Source)
The second quote was from “The Energies of Men” by Prof. James … 1908.
If a myth has that long of a time frame to grow and find its way into everyone’s minds (hehe …), it’s not surprising that it’s hard to get it out of the minds. Especially when it’s such a comforting myth!
If you can tell yourself “people that are smarter than be can use more of their brain, it’s not my fault that I suck!” you won’t want to switch to ”I suck because I don’t put much effort in learning new things.” Not saying everyone can do everything, but you can do a lot if you’re determined enough. @suesa
But why try? Life is so comfortable the way it is!
But enough with the philosophy, you didn’t click this post just for a “this is wrong, now feel bad about your life”.
The 10% myth can be somewhat justified if you look at the brain, this magnificent, misunderstood organ because it’s not completely made out of neurons!
Your brain isn’t just a mass of cells that control your body and store your memory, there are many cells that act as a support system! They’re called “glial cells” (glia = Greek for glue) and for a long time, it was thought that they do … basically nothing. Their name already indicates that early scientists assumed they just act as glue to hold everything together.
But that’s absolutely untrue. In fact, glial cells have multiple functions.
Microglia act as the brain’s immune system, as it’s mostly cut-off from the rest of the body by the blood-brain barrier. Astrocytes take care of the neurons and “feed” them. Oligodendrocytes serve as electric isolation.
And if you take all these cells together, you’ll quickly notice that they’re a huge part of the brain which we don’t use for thinking. So technically we only actively use a small part of our brain. But the part we don’t use can’t be accessed and even if it could, it wouldn’t really change much.
Now, let’s assume, despite everything I just stated above, we were using only 10% of our neurons. Let’s assume evolution somehow totally failed and created something so big that causes so many problems (childbirth is mostly a problem because of our large heads) and then we only use 10% of it.
Right now, our brain uses up about 20% of all the energy our body needs a day. And in contrary to other organs, it always uses a lot of energy. And if energy is low, all reserves are directed to the brain. Your brain would “accept” the death of the rest of a system for it to survive. This is called “the selfish brain”, more about that if you click the according link in my sources.
So imagine you suddenly unlock those magic 90% and achieve 100% capacity (at which you already are if you don’t have a brain injury, can’t say it often enough). You’d also need ten times more energy. Which is … 200% of what your body needs a day?
I don’t even know if you could eat that much AND MORE (pumping it up to almost 300% of your daily calorie intake), because at this point, you’ve only fed your brain, not your body. I’m pretty sure this would mess up your whole organism in no time and you’d die.
And I don’t think you’d be able to think straight in that condition. Not because you have so much more capacity all of sudden but because your brain cells are just dying off because of the lack of nutrition.
Conclusion: Myths like this are dumb and one should think that simply thinking about what they imply debunks them pretty fast.
Conclusion number two: If Hollywood was more scientific, most movies would end after the first 20 minutes because their heroes would just die in some dumb way.
Conclusion number three: I’d watch that
EDIT: Several people only skim the post and think that the last part is the truth and implies we are in fact only using a fraction of our brain. That is not true! It was pure speculation! We use our full brain, 100%.
Sources:
What’s the matter with only exploiting a portion of our gray matter?
Do we only use 10% of our brains?
The selfish brain: competition for energy resources
Pictures taken from pixabay.com
I am very amazed by the information you have provided in this post. I had this misconception since the early days of my life. Now sorted.
good points, now I can prove everyone wrong at parties who say we only use a small percentage
I am pretty sure some people do use only 10% of their brain :D
[Please don't whip me.]
That may be too generous! 😂
You're definitely right. I know some people, too. Hahaha :)
That's not a fact! hahahaha
...
(puts down the whip, slowly)
It is new year time... come on ;)
Every neuroscientist I know HATES that saying.
My favorite historical explanation during grad school was that when neurology was getting started (late 1800s), it got a big boost during the Russo-Japanese War, because the higher velocity bullets meant that more and more soldiers started surviving head wounds. Those early neurologists quickly mapped out the sensory and motor cortices by the obvious blindness or paralysis following damage to those areas. But the deficits from the higher level association cortices (which are most of the cortex) were much more subtle. They called these 'silent' cortex because they didn't appear to do anything. And the myth was born.
Interesting theory. I was assuming it was because 90% of the brain is used for functions that don't include surface thoughts, and idiots interpreted this as 'people only use 10% of their brain!'
Though this films / shows does not end in 20 minutes. I think the best / competent characters (at the start) dies due to bad luck (Got hit by a sniper, got hit by a mortar, got trapped in an avalanche). Might be a bit morbid but at least most of I posted here more or less has a happy ending (Well in the war movies if you are anti us then probably not a happy ending :p).
Alive (1993 film) - Wikipedia
Band of Brothers (miniseries) - Wikipedia
The Pacific (miniseries) - Wikipedia
Its a bit of a cheat as this stories are based on real life so Hollywood cant to get too artistic on making the film/show.
Evolution eliminates everything that is not needed. It would make no sense why brains kept growing if we don't use them.
It's real, people do not stop mentioning this, even though it's not true. What is certain is that there is a lot of information that we do not know about our brain and hence the efforts of neuroscientists to try to unveil them
Lol and I wonder the same way when people say that watching English movies helps you perfect your English skills. :) The fact that a vast majority of internet users get 'knowledge' on almost every topic from Wikipedia and then impose it on people around them getting a superior feeling of 'Greek philosophers resurrected', takes this funny situation to the next level. In their social circles, they are regarded as 'Mountains of knowledge'.
Conclusion number four: Humans think that they use only 10% of their brains because brain is a complex matter and till date, humans have only understood only 10% of it's entire functionalities.
Sum Up: Einstein was not the most genius man of the world. :)
By the way, @suesa, who is this faceless lady in the photo and why is her puppy staring at me? :)
Steem On!
It's because the movie is so much better that the book
Yes, most textbooks are terrible.
I generally lose the direction of the plot about a third to 2 thirds of the way through and it doesn't help when you're instructed to mix the chapters up... say, start with Chapter 4 then go read Chapter 7 then back to Chapter 2. In conjunction with the characters changing all over the place then not showing up in any other part of the book I really get confused.
Just a pic I added to illustrate a boring lifestyle :P
You could have served humanity by not making it faceless. :)
I just realized that this 10% myth is like saying:
"90% of this computer is just a metal case and a bunch of cords and plastic. All of the math happens in the CPU. Imagine how powerful our computers would be if they were all CPU!"
I didn't know about the glial cells. I learn something from you every day.
Best analogy ever
Well I'm just an old town doctor. I did my training in some god-forsaken tropical country. But the fact that our brain can't tolerate even a few seconds of arterial pressure drop seems like proof enough of the fact that it doesn't really have much of a functional reserve... in my south-american country they teach this shit in school. I'm not really aware of the reach of SteemStem but it seems more like Steempopularscience or steem general culture...
... So? Reading the comments, there are obviously enough people who didn't know it. Great that your school didn't fail you :)
And popular science is still science. You don't have to read it if it bores you, steemSTEM has a variety of great writers and I'm sure you will find something that will meet your standards.
I just wanted to give you more visibility so she notices you, ol' friend.
I'm not sure what you expect to happen
A rational and measured response which you gave. My friend is probably just envious. Then he just trying to pick a fight unsuccessfully but I could be wrong.
I'm on vacation, I won't fight for no good reason 😜
Asking why to fight is like asking why leaves fall... it is in their nature... the true question is what is worth fighting for... Nah I was just trying to elicit a response... the lightness of the article upset my tummy a bit but that's all
Ugh we're reaching levels of brown-nosing that shouldn't even be posible
Excellent work! Thanks for sharing. @suesa
Keep it up!
Hahaha what an awesome post! :D
Powerful reasoning with minimal effort. Very elegant!
...and BOOM the myth is blown up! :)
Best,
mountain.phil28
that's true 100% people should stop believing those myths
My goodness!!.... So I've offline for a while and thought to checkout some of your posts. Wow... You just cleared a lot of myths and doubts about humans using just 10% of our brains.. Thank you so much for this great information.You're just awesome. Happy New Year too @suesa. Followed you.
For many people, the 10 percent myth sounds both feasible and appealing because they see it in terms of human potential. Many of us believe that we could achieve so much more - learning languages, musical instruments, sporting skills - if only we applied ourselves. It's easy to see how this morphs into the shorthand idea that we use just 10 percent of our brain's capacity or potential.
I loved the post (as I quite often get into arguments with friends about this topic) but there is one thing I would like to add (or ask) in relation to this part here:
Are you including certain mental illnesses as brain injury as, from my knowledge, some mental illnesses can actually suppress normal brain function. I might be wrong on this too which is why I am trying to bring this up as a curiosity.
Doing a quick search (with google scholarly articles) did provide some papers that contained both decreased brain function and depression (as one of my search parameters) but I didn't get around to reading the entire articles to back up my claims above and, well, I don't want to back up my claims with something that either denies it (in which case it wold have been good to read to learn the truth) or something extremely faulty.
I haven't done enough research on this to give you a definite answer, but in my opinion, anything that keeps the brain from functioning normally can count as some form of injury. While writing this, I didn't even think about anything else than big, "visible" injuries tho.
Don't worry about it, if I get a chance over the next couple of days I will look into it more and try and come up with an actual answer since I have become more curious. Thanks for the response!
Tag me when you make a post and/or DM me!
Yes! Thank-you! I knew it was a myth (a quick Google search gives a lot of evidence that we use our full capacity) but I did not know about where the misinterpretation came in nor about the glial cells. That part is fascinating!
And yes, I'd watch that, too, especially if it's plausible.
Ugh, thank you, this is one of my least favorite myths out there.
Want to watch me use my glial cells for thinking?
Yes
What would be a good follow up is practical ways to improve brain function.
But nobody wants to hear about, healthy food, lots of water, exercise and enough sleep
Oh.. I thought it would be more fun stuff like drinking, drugs and headbanging... I'm out.
Tough luck. You need a little cynicism. All the best stuff eventually comes down to work (sigh!)
how do we quantify 10% at first place ? :P , nice article btw
That's another good question! But people often don't as something like that and just take the number at face value.
That's actually something that's occurred to me. What's the comparison? Is there actually someone out there who uses %100 and they are using him/her as a measuring tool? Maybe they figure that iguanas use %100 and they measure it's brain mass and we are not living up to the comparison with the size of our own brain mass? Can 90% of our brain mass be replaced with an implant without anyone noticing the difference? All questions to be answered!
That's right, they are brains have been deceived by the charlatanism. Maybe these brains are at 10% hahaha joke.
In addition, if the energetic needs increase in such percentage, the greater metabolic activity would bring about a consequence of greater cellular wear and therefore we would accelerate our death in such percentage. Does anyone want to die so young? Of course, I do not.
It certainly bothers a lot of neuroscientists. There are so many widely held misunderstandings about the brain that scientists find it extremely unhelpful to have more nonsense spread to millions of movie goers. Other people I've spoken to are more optimistic and think that audiences will realize that the claims are not meant to be taken seriously. I have to admit, I enjoyed Limitless despite the daft premise.
I haven't yet seen Lucy, but it promotes the myth.
Mind blowing. I felt like I was being elevated from the masses that believe in that 'dumb' myth :) And also getting educated about my own brain and how it works. Especially this whole ending;
Thank you queen of science!
This is great @suesa. Our brain is the most complicated organ in our body system. Very important part am not surprised it consumes that much energy. Thanks for sharing and killing the 10% myth.
"Your brain would “accept” the death of the rest of a system for it to survive." I did not know it was called selfish brain, but before I read the following sentence I made a remark selfish brain. Made me giggle.
So if I were to starve, my brain would kill my body?
Not actively kill but stand by and hog all the resources, yes
That's where they get most of their historic knowledge from...
No money in that... although, attention spans seem to be becoming shorter and maybe one day, epic full-length movies will also be 22 minutes long.
Me too. I have a list of actors I'd like to see die really early in a film, in some scientific manner.
Great post!
Thx for busting another unscientific myth :)
I am bit scared that if i use the full potential of my brain, i will become a usb.
chuckles..
I hated that part so much I literally yelled at the screen
indeed, you are right @suesa. research has shown that many people don't read everything along a line
I'm not sure if this is supposed to be satirical or if there's just a language barrier ..
Finally, someone said it!
Great article!
We only use a small amount of our brains because most people don't need the rest. We have unlimited potential and can do so much more than most people 'attempt to' in their lifetime.
Stretch a little and you'll find that you can achieve multiple successes in multiple fields once we get out of the; 'This is what I do' mentality.
What we do is; create for the good of all. You can only succeed at this if you are willing to move forward from a place it may have taken you a long time to arrive at.
The brain awaits your NEXT aventure ;)
It's called backup space :)
wonderful...happy new year
Why would evolution make it so we only use 10% of an organ and still have the 90% with us? We would've just gotten rid of the extra 90% that we don't need and we would walk around with a wallnut in our heads!
Even "IF" we are just using 10% thank god or "random series of events that made human life possible" that evolution kept the current amount of stuff in our skulls.
That's my point, it doesn't make sense.
The truth is that we use virtually all of our brain every day.
Let's say, for example, that as you are reading this article, you are eating a sandwich. As you are reading, the frontal lobes in your cerebral cortex are engaged in thinking and reasoning. You are enjoying your delicious sandwich thanks to your parietal lobes, which are responsible for taste, texture and smell of food. The occipital lobes help to process how you see the words on this page, and the temporal lobes help you process what you hear—like the crunch of your sandwich and the rustle of the page.
That's what I basically wanted to say: That we already use all of our brain and that the 10% are a myth.
This is a false assumption.We use 100% of our brains,But maybe the 10% refers to number of brain cells.
I ... did you read the post?
yes brain and energy
And before that? "It's a myth, here are some people who might have caused it to happen and btw, it might also be because there are a lot of other cells in your brain". The last bit with the energy was pure speculation.
The brain looks yummy.
"We only use about 10% of our brains," is technically true, just that the 10% in one moment may not be the same 10% we were using in a previous moment.
I can agree with that :P
Oh new explanation of human brain.... What will happened after 10th moments... ;)
Quite a smug conclusion
Can't help myself sometimes
Interesting post! Thanks for the information and sharing with us
The whole 10 % myth probably originates from "assigning" 10% to our consciosness and the rest to our subconsciousness, not necessarily that we would not be using 90 % of our brain at all.
I mean, I agree it's utter bullsh*t, but I guess I understand where such a belief comes from. Or at least I try to
Okay, this really got me thinking, why would i want to use the whole 100% i think it would also cause some lagging like devices do when the ram is used up by processes. Lile it would take about a minute to process info and all.
Well, i think i am okay with the little percentage that i am using so far i am getting things done.
Thank you for educating Us.
You're not using a little percentage tho, you're using all the cells intended for the purpose.
Haha, i guess thats all i need
Amazing post...is the super Creation ...Carry on my friend...
Great post ! This 10 % talk has also this notion of people not being in control of themselves.
science and advances in medicine surprises us more every day and when we explore everything our body is capable of doing
Does it mean people won't get fat if we were to unlock the remaining 90% of our brain?
The body have to supply 200% more energy as you stated in your post?
Wat do you think?
(There are no remaining 90%) I think they'd die first.
Alright
Excellent work! Thanks for sharing. @suesa
Keep it up!
Hahahaha great post i also heard that humars.
Human can use only 10% of there brains if human can use 100% then that huam becones unstopable
Anyways nice information
Fact: The 10% of brain cells are neurons. Does this mean humans consider this 10% of the brain as brain. What's rest of it? unbrain?
Glial cells. They're everywhere around the neurons. The myth about the 10% is often taken as "the rest can be unlocked by drugs or something" which is especially wrong if we say the 10% only applies to neurons.