Human brain capacity and the different theories of it.

[Kosmo]

I was wondering this a bit since I haven't been keeping my eye out for the science forums for discussion about brain for a while, I lost my interest because all scientists just throw around wild theories and nothing remotely scientific.

So what is happening on the old brain department these days? What is the latest hot theory about human brain, few latest comments about human brain what I can remember are something like "humans use only 10% of their potential capacity" and that "human brain can store from around 1TB to 100TB of information with much more efficient data compression and storing than computer ofcourse".

I have always found this forum to be a great source for scientific talk since people here actually pay attenttion to these kind of things.

This forum should be renamed to be "Political, Religious and Scientific Discussion" since this is not just Political discussion.

[mawibse]

"humans use only 10% of their potential capacity"

BS, its from an ad campaign from 1998-99 something, you use 100% of your brain.

Its how you use it, not how much, that matters. You do "fire off" about a maximum of 10% of your synapses at one time though, fire off more and you would go into seizures.

If someone is naturally very skilled at something,(counting large numbers ala Rainman) does not mean that he uses a part of the brain most don't, it means he's using it in a way most don't.

But guess if some people like that notion, think of the possebilities! Usually people who's into paranormal psychich stuff absolutly LOOOVE that old tale. *sigh*

"human brain can store from around 1TB to 100TB of information with much more efficient data compression and storing than computer ofcourse".

You have about 100 billion brain cells, the brain does not work sequential and does not store or process information digitally so any comparison with a computer is extremely shady business.

But.. IF.. you extrapolate the known amount of information the retina sends to the brain it would amount to roughly 100 trillion instructions per second, which would give us until about 2030 before we are surpassed by computers, but like I said, shady business.

Other popular misconceptions about the human brain:

Its grey; A "fresh" brain is pink to red and very soft and jelly like.

[Kosmo]

Nice input.

Yeah, I was always assuming that the "10% of potential capacity" means that the things we use our brain for only uses 10% of our potential brain capacity of what it could be if humans could harness the brain correctly, not like that the other 90% is just useless flesh that could be cut out and still be functioning properly.

There have been alot of tests where scientists scan brain patterns and waves of very smart people and some normal people, in Prism (a finnish science tv show) there was a documentary about brain and there was something about such a test and they said that some mensa dude was using way more of his brain than the "control" subjects who were in the limits of normal people (I guess capable of learning stuff but not necessarily automatically understand things like the mensa dude who was like a god).

There is so little empirical evidence of anything like this, so it's almost impossible to say if it is true or false, man knows so little of his own brain.

The 1TB to 100TB in relative computer capacity is based on the theory of neurons being able to store "one bit" that is to say on or off I guess, and the estimated amount of neurons in brain and calculating something in that sense. But it's most likely that brain just compresses and uses the information so much more efficiently that we can't compare it to a computer, not even in the year 2030 since brain stores everykind of data, from human motor functions to images and feelings, computers mainly store porn

But I like where we are going. I wish more people would give input.

[mawibse]

Harness the brain correctly is up to the individual. I mean how do you judge if math is correct or if social interaction is the correct way to harness the brain?

Usually you harness the brain depending on what you work with and what hobbies you have, i.e. what you do. That's a pretty correct way to use it to me.

Well its always interesting with comparing "ordinary" guys to mensa guys or idiot savants with Asperger syndromes who have amazing abilities like storing complete phone catalogs in their minds and such.

Problem is you don't usually compare what the "normal" guys are good at with how the godlily intelligent do in those areas. Let's just say that usually the smart have sides where they are way bellow average and where the normal people use more of their brains.

Also how much of the brain you use is a bit misleading, for example those doing something they are good at like a mensa girl finding patterns actually fire off less activity between synapses then the ordinary, however their overall brain activity (think blood flow, kinda) are more spread out. This is of course also largely dependent on what task is performed.

And in some ways its true that we know very little about the brain but it always depends on what you compare too, and that is true for all science fields.

Heck even some mathematical proof nowadays are so complex that even with computers we only endure to verify some proofs to 99% certainty.

There are a lot of studies and research going on in the cognitive science field, so we know more then you think.

[⌐■_■]

Alltough I have nothing to add, I'd like to say this is interesting read.

[mawibse]

Interesting side note, Autism and Asberger does not always cause effects like being able to memmorize Central Stations complete timetables or such but some are also quite physical:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBYPaNc57Ik