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From: nproco@world.std.com (Daniel Burnstein)
Subject: Re: What's with this 10% statistic?
Message-ID: <D75p51.4vK@world.std.com>
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
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References: <3msak1$ufo@ns.compumedia.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 01:51:00 GMT
Lines: 37


Clearly, Monica is from Missouri!  (and would ask God for her ID card)



Monica Stewart (monica@compumedia.com) wrote:

: I notice here at comp.ai, and elsewhere, there is this much touted "fact" 
: that we use only 10% of our brains. I run into this idea when I'm 
: chatting with friends, reading science fiction, and sometimes when I talk 
: to people who call themselves scientists.

: Where did this stat come from? It's been around for a while. I suspect 
: that is a rumour that has become common knowledge.

: When people talk about this 10% thing, it annoys me. Efficiency can be a 
: subtle topic. The brain is almost always a subtle topic. To say our 
: brains are 10% efficient is so open to interpretation that I don't think 
: it's even meaningful.

: Given how limited our understanding of brain functioning is, I don't 
: think we can say much about it efficiency except maybe for something 
: like how efficiently a brain converts food energy into heat.

: Even describing how efficiently a computer converts energy into 
: computation is not trivial task!

: I suspect that the human brain is well designed for some processes like 
: daydreaming and learning languages in childhood, but is rather 
: inefficient at some tasks like numerical thinking.

: My brain, I'm sure, is very efficient by any standard when it comes to 
: daydreaming ;)

: But please, someone tell me where this 10% statistic came from.

: Monica
