a disagreement that, i hope, will be cordially received...
it's not so difficult to define things. given "normal"
conditions, if a nervous system's outputs agree with all
momentary environmental inputs, the processing of information is
100%
this means that, to assess, "brain capacity", all that's
necessary is to train subjects to criterion, add more
environmental inputs, train to criterion, and so forth, heading
toward environmental chaos, noting when the nervous system is
unable to keep up with the quantity of environmental inputs...
this allows the "information-processing capacity" of the nervous
system in question to be measured.
but there's a different "side" to the question, and it, too, has
an answer... most often, rather than enduring the real-life
equivalent of the experiment briefly outlined above, folks'
nervous systems converge upon neural activation "states" that opt
for a "just good enough" repetoire of behavioral manifestations
(see the "volitional diminishing-returns decision", AoK, Ap7).
what happens is that folks' nervous systems "settle-in" at a
neural activation "level" in which neither "success" nor
"failure" ever occurs, but in which relatively the same quantity
of neural activation is commonplace.
with respect to such, specific information-processing capacity is
traded off in favor of non-specific information-processing
capacity... and the relatively long-term "level" of neural
activation inherent in this "trade-off" is also a measure of
"brain capacity".
what seems like "magic" (and what probably underpins the
"confusion" with respect to the question of "how much of the
brain's capacity do folks use?") is the fact that nervous
system's information-processing capacities can be augmented via
experience. (it's why we send our Children to school.)
in the end, the answer is 100% of nervous systems' capacities are
always being used. it's just that most of the "time" this 100%
capacity is put to "use" in efforts to assure that only a minimal
set of things will actually have to be accomplished... people
choose to "just get by".
it's within the capacities of nervous systems to choose thusly,
but it's not within the capacities of nervous systems to actually
gain anything via such choice... everything left undone "just"
becomes ever-augmenting environmental inputs that, to the degree
of such increase, reduces information-processing capacities of
brains across societies.
nervous systems have "safety mechanisms" (see AoK, Ap4, 5, 7, 8)
built into them with respect to such... we've been witnessing the
consequences of such "safety-valve" activation in "Yugoslavia"
for the last eight years.
there is a better way for us to use our nervous systems. it's my
Hope that Neuroscience will do what it can to lift everyone up
to that "level".
K. P. Collins (ken)
Matt Jones wrote:
>> In article <7i4285$sge$1 at news5.svr.pol.co.uk> Simon Marsh,
>simonmarsh at tardis99.freeserve.co.uk writes:
> >Some neuroscientests estimate that during an average lifespan, a person uses
> >only 1/100 of 1% (.0001) of his potentional brain capacity. - Why do we
> >have a brain with so much capacity that we hardly test a fraction of it in a
> >normal life time?
> >
>> OK, OK. We've all had our fun. Now, here's a serious answer, Simon:
>> The reason you've gotten so many snide responses to your question is
> because most of us "neuroscientists" get asked this same question pretty
> often, and we're all frankly bewildered by it, for several reasons.
>> First, as neuroscientists, we're all at least marginally concerned about
> issues like "what is the information capacity of the brain". Problem is,
> working in this field for a while has taught us that a) We don't know
> what this capacity is; b) We haven't figured out how to measure it; and
> c) We haven't even figured out what exactly we mean by "information" or
> "capacity" when talking about the brain.
>> This isn't because we're all stupid. It's because there isn't any simple
> or unique way of phrasing these questions or making these measurements.
> For example, to measure how much of the "capacity" is actually being
> used, one could use the ratio of a single neurons firing rate to its
> maximum possible rate (let's think real simple for the moment, and leave
> the rest of the brain out of the equation). Under this definition our
> neurons would be using hardly any of their capacity, because they usually
> don't fire anywhere near as fast as they could. But is this a sensible
> definition? Using this definition, the only times our neurons would be
> using their full capacity would be during epileptic seizures (hardly what
> one thinks of as an efficient use of brain power). On the other hand, we
> could try to express "capacity" as Ma Bell does, and define it in terms
> of efficient coding of information. Doing this, we'd learn that you can
> carry the maximum information (in bits/sec) when you are working at half
> or less than half of your maximum rate. But this totally begs the
> question of what we mean by "information". There are probably a hundred
> different ways of quantitatively defining this term: Shannon Information,
> Fischer Information, Kolmogorov Complexity, Algorithmic Information, etc,
> etc, etc... and none of these are the same as what we usually mean in
> everyday language when we say "information". We usually mean, well, er...
> "meaning"! In the semantic sense. Whereas most of the quantitative
> definitions explicitly don't mean that. They are aiming instead at a
> formal mathematical description of an arbitrary measurable quantity. So
> this business of "brain capacity" is a completely wide open gap in our
> knowledge. We haven't even figured out exactly how to ask the question,
> let alone answer it.
>> It's therefore hardly surprising that we get a little testy when we see
> Deepak Chopra or whoever bandying about statements like "neuroscientests
> estimate that during an average lifespan, a person uses only 1/100 of 1%
> (.0001) of his potentional brain capacity". Most of us would be only too
> thrilled to learn that someone had actually figured out a way to make
> such a statement accurately and meaningfully. But so far, it's just
> hooey. And anyone who says otherwise is probably selling something.
>> Cheers,
>> Matt Jones