IUBio

"Humans only use a fraction of their brain...Reply"

maxwell mmmaxwell at hotmail.com
Fri May 18 13:18:43 EST 2001


"Richard L. Hall" <rhall at webmail.uvi.edu> wrote in message news:a04310101b72abd565c10@[146.226.154.76]...
> Thanks for the comprehensive review and radio - computer analogy.

My pleasure, Sir.
Alas, somehow the findings Lashley encountered over time, that his rats
showed *quantitative* decrements, instead of suggesting that a distributed
processing architecture was being degraded in respect to progressive
ablations, was fed into a popular notion that only part of the brain was being
used, rather than the more parsimonious idea of inherent redundancy.

Perhaps even more curious, Lashley seemed at times at odds with his own findings,
which is another matter not material to the topic of the silly '10%' of brain caprice
that Karl Lashley never offered--good heavens !
> 
> It always amazes me that anyone gives any credence to humans having 
> large volumes of unused CNS.  Nobody asked the rats: What part of 
> your unused brain are you willing to have removed?   I doubt any 
> human would be willing to spare even a thimble full of brain on the 
> assertion that it was not needed.

Few would, though of course many have undergone rather extensive ablations
to mitigate status epilepticus and other maladies, and many have enjoyed
less troubled lives subsequently, as long as *certain* regions are spared.

These findings are consistent with a notion of redundancy, and of parallel processing,
and do not support that "we only use 10% of our brain."

What is truly absurd is that an already false notion was extended further toward
other self-fulfilling caprices that are even less worthy of inflicting upon this page,
but may be found amidst the babble of numerous self-improvement gurus who
have a program to pitch. But 'tis human nature, a thing rather difficult to quantify <g>

> 
> rlh

-maxwell
> 
> 
> >Years ago (maybe 12 by now) I posted a message asking this question
> >on a fledgling neuropsych listserver. I asked where such an idea
> >originated from and received a few answers, none of which directly
> >answered the question.
> >    One answer from McCarthy of AI fame was that in 1939 or so (he
> >was not sure), he read the famous myth in a self help book.  At
> >least two others suggested Wm. James and Karl Lashley as possible
> >sources.
> >    Lashley's work with rats and cortical lesions seems the most
> >"logical" source if I had to invent one, but his work on this
> >subject for many reasons (as is the myth) is odd because he seemed
> >to have ignored the cortical literature arising from the 60 years
> >previous to his (ca.) 1929 Science review paper.
> >    Anyway, much work in the last 50 years tends to support cortical
> >functional localization which Lashley apparently ignored. The myth then
> >arises, in my interpretation of an urban legend, from studies
> >based on mistaken notions of the homogeneity of the majority of
> >cortex.
> >    However, one can take this statement de novo and ask what
> >does it mean? I wonder if the question even has meaning?
> >
> >Is it similar to "A radio only operates at a miniscule of efficiency
> >because it is only receiving one station at a time?" or
> >"Computers are inefficient because many of the virtual switches
> >are closed at a given instant of time?" 
> >    I think the %10 question is invalid at least because it does
> >not specify the nature of neural information. Is information only
> >conveyed by active neurons? Surely not! Just think about any
> >topographic system requires the "inactivity" of most neurons to
> >permit specification of a specific item within the topography
> >(and I use "inactivity" to mean uncorrelated, not silent).
> >    Not to belabor the point, and I sure anticipate both cogent and
> >flamed responses, despite the ubiquitous "knowledge" that humans
> >use only 10-15% of their brains, that knowledge is bogus.
> >
> >Bill Saidel
> >Biology, Rutgers University
> >saidel at crab.rutgers.edu
> 
> -- 
> Richard L. Hall, Ph.D.
> Comparative Animal Physiologist
> 
> University of the Virgin Islands
> 2 John Brewers Bay
> St. Thomas, U.S.V.I. 00802
> 
> 340-693-1386
> 340-693-1385 FAX
> 
> rhall at uvi.edu
> 
> "Live life on the edge...the view is always better"  rlh
> 
> ---




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