Comments by "" (@jmitterii2) on "What percentage of your brain do you use? - Richard E. Cytowic" video.

Of the cerebrum. Not the entire brain. Heart, breathing, hormone functions of the brain are continuously working. The cerebrum is also always working, but in cyclical bursts certain areas become more stimulated. Those bursts are fairly fast: for consciousness its 12.5 to 30 transitions or cycles per second. Mainly because certain parts cerebrum (thinking part of the brain) serve as multiple functions and often require a sequence of functions of other locations; so a mixture of bursting activity in 3 locations and 4 other locations can mean entirely different concepts for the brain. It can't spark all at once; like having transistors in a computer all turn on; you'd get nothing. This video didn't do a very good job of explaining how false the 10% of the brain myth. You're brain is always function and being used. 16% of the neurons are undergoing neural bursts while other parts are acting passive still holding information and waiting to receive information in cycles of 12.5 to 30 transitions or cycles per second. Otherwise if your brain lit up to heavily not only would calories be burnt very quickly, the very function of the brain would stop working properly. Like going into seizure or just simply unconsciousness. Some animals that have very primitive/oddly evolved brains like opossums where their brains can actually have too much bursting activity that can make them seizure; particularly too much activity between left and right brain lobes. It has served the possum well enough as it just sits as if its dead.
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EugeneParallax And the cycles of the brain are fairly fast waking brain is 12.5 to 30 cycles per second. So 16% x 30 cycles per second = 480% potential of the entire brain can be used every second in these bursts.
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We use 100% of our brain. The 16% referred is how much the various of the brain or undergoing large amounts of electrical activity; specifically in the outer part such as cerebrum used for thinking. Inner parts of the brain is always working such as involuntary actions of heart and breathing as well as other parts receiving inputs or waiting for inputs like hearing, seeing, sense of touch, smelling, etc. at their individual cycles. Cerebrum brain cycles very quickly: waking consciousness ranges from 12.5 to 30 transitions or cycles per second. And new studies show both grey matter which is the smallest portion of the brain once thought to be only places where neurons formed memories and other complex activities appears to be wrong. White matter are of the cerebrum has been observed to change shape over time after learning motor activities. http://io9.com/5681378/mysterious-white-matter-may-be-more-important-than-gray-matter-in-your-brain So we use all of the brain. And it cycles very quickly. Essentially, the 16% is describing how large bursting activity happens in a series instead of all at once in cycles. But if all of your brain wasn't working; it wouldn't receive those bursting cycles up to 30 every second and continue the brain activity. And if all of the brain lit up 100%; likely many of the interrogative parts of the brain that specialize in many areas such as speech, motor function, facial recognition, etc. would get too much cross information (some parts of the brain and concept forming use same regions or mixture of regions for different things so data would get mixed up) causing you to ignore the stimulus of 100% burst activity, unconsciousness, seizures, spasm, or become extremely confused and disoriented until it was reduced back to the lower numbers mentioned in the video. Analogy to turning all transistor paths on a computer to on. You'd get scrambled confusion... just an analogy but it'd be something like that.
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JaySee5 Given same quantity of food, if cooked you get more calories from that same quantity than if not cooked. During the stone age food was much more scarce; so cooking food allowed 1 ounce of meat or fruit etc. unlocks more calories our bodies could absorb than 1 ounce of meat or fruit not cooked. Since food was much more scarce especially pre-farming, and prehistoric people were much more physically active: the human needed every bit of calories from the same amount of scarce food. Cooking unlocks even more calories from the same amount of food. Today, food is in many developed countries abundant. Hence the obesity problem. Food isn't as scarce, so we can deal with dieting by not eating cooked food with no negative effect. Or just eating less food based on the recommended calorie intake for your weight and physical activity.
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