h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Brain power

Posted Sep 2, 2004

Quoting from an interview with Michael Gurian, "For about two hundred years we have been focused as a race on accessing more and more of our own power of mind. Every few hundred thousand years our brains expand their abilities in such leaps that our cultures have to follow. This last happened millennia ago, when we evolved to employ abstract intelligence in our civilization building. We came to rely on reason (the cerebral cortex) more than on instinct (the brain stem and lower limbic system). Our minds are now expanding from the 10 percent brain usage that has characterized homo sapiens to perhaps 15 - 20 percent brain use by the end of this century."

Interesting. It has taken millennia for the brain to evolve to the point at which it is using approximately ten percent of its ability. Ten percent? Hmmmm...would this be on average? It doesn't seem likely that men such as Galileo or Newton or Einstein or Hawking used only ten percent of their brains. But overall, ten percent? That ten percent is responsible for where we are today...manned and unmanned space travel and exploration, gene mapping, and war.

And Gurian's thinking is that the usage percentage might rise 50 to 100 percent of what is currently in use by the end of this century. Still, it would mean that the brain is capable of much, much more.

It's staggering to think that one day, the human brain will be hitting on all cylinders. Will it be necessary? Will we have created such problems that total brain use is required? I'd like to think that by the time the brain has evolved to where it's using 100% of its power, problems will have very short life spans.

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Latest reply: Sep 2, 2004