A few years ago I was deep into a discussion with my boyfriend about our mutual interest in the human brain. “Everything we know about it is so fascinating that its hard to imagine how much we don’t know,” I gushed, “I mean, don’t they say that you only use 10% percent of your brain anyway?” His answer was swift and assured. “No, that’s not true. That’s a common misconception that people have and it drives me absolutely crazy.” Taken aback by such an abrupt dismissal of something I had been led to believe was true, I tried to argue with him but found that I had little information to go on. “Yeah, but how do you know for sure that’s true? There is still so much we don’t know about the brain!”
A truer statement would have been that there was so much that I didn’t know about the brain. According to a howstuffworks.com article, 52% of participants in a recent online survey still believed this piece of “conventional wisdom”: that humans only utilize or have access to 10% of their mental capacity. You might be surprised to know that this is one of the most persistent pieces of misinformation to arise out of the past few centuries. It has managed to permeate the landscape of common knowledge quite effectively despite flying in the face of logic because of a number of different factors, but before we get to that, a proper debunking of the myth is in order.
Brain imaging technology has taught us a lot about the brain. For example, we now know that many functions and thought processes are localized, meaning that they occur mostly in specific regions of the brain (i.e the occipital lobe processes most visual information). However, any complex thought pattern ends up taking place in multiple regions of the brain. Doing something as simple as getting in your car and turning the ignition may simultaneously trigger activity regions across the span of your cerebral cortex. Research into brain activity has never indicated that even a single part of the brain lies dormant 100% of the time, meaning that we are using our entire brain at one point or another on any given day. There is no region of mystery cortex who’s silence is the only thing separating you from genius, success, or telekinetic powers. Furthermore, if 90% of our brain had little to do with our cognitive functioning in everyday life, we would be a lot less vulnerable to the kinds of brain damage sustained by people as a result of injuries or disease. There is no region of our brain that can experience trauma without resulting in some loss of cognitive functioning. Which is not to say that the brain isn’t capable of compensating and recovering from this loss; it is, of course, an incredible organ.
The 10% myth is also contrary to the nature of evolution. The brain is a hefty piece of equipment: it weighs an average of three pounds and uses up a full 20% of the body’s energy. If 90% of the brain had gone unused for so long, it would have become a counterproductive attribute and time would eventually have fitted us with much smaller brains. Also consider neurons, the millions of cells that comprise our brain and make thought a possibility: if a neuron is not making connections with other neurons, i.e being used, this means that the brain does not need it. As a result, the neuron will wither and die. This is a natural adaptive process of the brain that happens many times throughout our lifespan. It’s back to the old “use it or lose it” saying about anything regarding our bodies: if we weren’t using 90% of our brain, it would literally go away.
So why does this ridiculous myth refuse to die? It has been held up by a combination of outdated scientific ideas, misquotes, and good old-fashioned deceit for profit. Back in the 19th century, scientists were attempting to learn more about the brain the only way they knew how, which was doing horrible things to animals. They found that stimulating certain regions of dog’s brains resulted in a physical movement, such as the twitch of a paw. Other regions yielded no physical activity, which led the researchers to the false conclusion that these regions were not being used for anything, while in fact they were simply triggering mental processes. Albert Einstein is also frequently referenced as having attributed his genius as a successful access of the hidden 90% of his mental capacity; however, there is no record of him ever having said this. But perhaps most importantly, the idea of having a wealth of untapped potential brain power is quite an appealing concept: it gives us something to attribute all of our shortcomings to. If only we could access that 90% of our brain, we would finally be able to…just about anything could finish the end of that sentence. This sentiment is what many motivational speakers and writers, even proponents of psychic development, have exploited over the years in order to profit off of their programs, despite their teachings having no basis in fact. It is time to put this myth to rest, and, in realizing that 100% of our brain is available to us, start putting it to the best use we can.
“It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” – Carl Sagan
First published on July 1, 2011
Mind Dynamite 