Brock The Archmage Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 It is said that at any given time, a person only ever use between 10 and 20 % of their mind's potential. This makes me wonder if what the GeneForge is doing is simply unlocking more of your mind, which makes you more effective overall but makes individual parts of your brain, like the emotional center, less effective. The same 10-20% applies to the body as well. The best athlete you have ever seen is giving maybe as much as 20%, so a canister that makes you stronger goes over this limit. However, the reason this limit exists is using too much can cause severe damage, so what happens when a person uses 1000 canisters? heh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dikiyoba Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 That ten-percent-of-your-brain statement is false. There's no gigantic section of the brain just sitting around waiting to be unlocked. Dikiyoba. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randomizer Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 Most people don't use their full capacity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evnissyen Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 I have not studied neuroscience... however, I would tend to think that the brain is grown in full form for the potential of all possible mental activities... and the extent to which one chooses to generate neurological networks for the purpose of exercising this mental potential -- and which areas they choose to develop -- is then up to them. (And you cannot choose to develop all of it: you must choose.) When you exercise your mental resources for whatever end, your brain grows neurons. While artists will have extended networks in one part of their brain, athletes will show developement in another. Cabdrivers have been shown to have extended networks developed in the area that governs our internal map-making ability. So our capacity is ultimately governed not by the brain material itself but by the networks. Now... in terms of actual "untapped potential", this really seems like the same sort of situation where you have a lot of wilderness that has been broadly developed for, say, housing development or oil production or whatever. Sure, you can say that 95% of that area is wilderness, but only if you consider small spatterings of wood to be wilderness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Safey Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 what I think the 10% is referring too is that 90% of your brains weight is due cells that serve as support structures. However their is no huge locked portion of you mental capacity waiting to be unlocked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brock The Archmage Posted August 17, 2008 Author Share Posted August 17, 2008 Well if they are support structures serving as stabilizers, it would convert them to active, and you hvae to admit canister users are unstable. Oh well, bad idea I guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lilith Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 Originally Posted By: Brock The Archmage Well if they are support structures serving as stabilizers, it would convert them to active, and you hvae to admit canister users are unstable. Oh well, bad idea I guess. That'd be like replacing all your bones with muscles: it wouldn't make you stronger at all, it'd just make you much, much floppier. The supporting cells are there because they perform essential functions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Mystic Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 Originally Posted By: Brock The Archmage It is said that at any given time, a person only ever use between 10 and 20 % of their mind's potential. I've heard it's as low as 5%. Considering the way some people drive, however, I'd say even that would be an overestimate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Student of Trinity Posted August 21, 2008 Share Posted August 21, 2008 Since nobody knows what the brain does to make us think, or even just remember, nobody has any idea how much better it could potentially do it. For that matter, nobody has any idea what it would even mean to think 10 or 20 times better than normal humans do. Percentages like this are sheer hooey. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnarhIztok2511 Posted August 21, 2008 Share Posted August 21, 2008 This five percent only refer to people nowadays, since our society enforces specializing in only a narrow particular field. And the other reasons are we entrust our daily activities to machines more and more (calculators, computers ...) and we are taught to react to the surrounding environment (and situations) based solely on our experience. Therefore majority of people have no need to think. It is a proven fact that all natural systems "submit" to the principle of minimum action (or tend to be in the ground energy state). Therefore parts of people's brains that are not in use for some time become idle. But when an openminded person is facing a totally new challenge, their brain activity increases; especially given the challenge is all-around. Does anyone get what I mean? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evnissyen Posted August 21, 2008 Share Posted August 21, 2008 But more and more, each generation's youth are being trained to deal with increasing amounts of information and learn how to sort it all out and to multi-task (and research) more effectively. I don't see it as less thought, I see it as a different style of thought. Older people are not as well trained to deal with the increasing flood of information, so I think a lot of them tend to retreat and keep to what's comfortable to them. I think that in a few years I'm going to start noticing that my 3 nieces have developed and are developing thinking patterns that I cannot compete with. Of course, the trade-off, I suppose, is a reduced ability to focus. I've never been any good at focusing, myself. My father's much better at it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sudanna Posted August 21, 2008 Share Posted August 21, 2008 Quote: I think that in a few years I'm going to start noticing that my 3 nieces have developed Couldn't resist. Sorry, Evvy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evnissyen Posted August 21, 2008 Share Posted August 21, 2008 Hey! Those're my nieces you're talking about! I'm gonna find out where you live. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sudanna Posted August 22, 2008 Share Posted August 22, 2008 No, it's your nieces you're talking about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xelgion Posted August 22, 2008 Share Posted August 22, 2008 Babelduku. I must say green gravy tastes of butternuckles. Those aren't nieces, those are chef brian beefpotatowheelman. But then again, sunsets DO taste like tar. Lets kill you. They know where you live. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnarhIztok2511 Posted August 22, 2008 Share Posted August 22, 2008 Speaking of old people. There was a long-term study that finished recently, where they put old people (80 or so) into two groups. The first one was just a control group (did everything normal), but in the second group they started learning a new language (the one they haven't learned before). And after some time they withnesed that at the second group of people their brains grew and their brain cells multiplied much more rapidly. And also, at least some of them learned to speak a language fluently. And there are also cases when 80-year-old people learnedto use a computer like kids and ever learned how to write programmers code. And no, these are no miracles, every person is capable of doing it, it just depends on the will of a person (and perhaps it also helps to be open-minded, which, frankly, a lot of people today are not). And you also used the word "trained" and "multi-task". When training in something, your brains are very active, but when coming into a situation where you can react solely by "trainmed" reactions, your brain tends to not become very active at all. Your brain activity increases by a lot only when you are faced with a new situation and even then only when you start to think in new ways (in those you haven't before). That's again very evident by older people. Those who don't use their brain a lot they quickly lose the ability to function or even increase their chances to get dementias and such. But on the other hand people who are very active, they don't exhibit such attributes, or at least to a very lesser extent. A good example is my grandmothers friend, who is well over eighty, but she still teaches, sings, writes new songs, has recently started a shift in eating habits ... does a lot of new things. And when you talk to her, it's as if you were talking to a thirty-year-old. And about multi-task - what did you mean by that, what sort of tasks? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Milla Posted August 31, 2008 Share Posted August 31, 2008 Originally Posted By: Evnissyen But more and more, each generation's youth are being trained to deal with increasing amounts of information and learn how to sort it all out and to multi-task (and research) more effectively. I don't see it as less thought, I see it as a different style of thought. Older people are not as well trained to deal with the increasing flood of information, so I think a lot of them tend to retreat and keep to what's comfortable to them. Interestingly enough it's mentioned in G1 that student shapers are taught/trained to absorb and deal with large amounts of data quickly - before they learn any cool magical stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Mystic Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 Come to think of it, that type of learning might be useful in the real world. Would've helped me in high school and college. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janitorial Closet Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 Originally Posted By: The Mystic Come to think of it, that type of learning might be useful in the real world. Would've helped me in high school and college. That would(have) help(ed) us all at high school and college. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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