26 replies to this topic

[matak]

The thing that bothers me the most and what i really think could be made with lot of practise is the abbility to train the brain to do several things at once. I even think that even simplest activity like maybe surfing and listening to music is doing more things at once. But how to take control of it. We all now, at least most of us that humans are using just 5-7% of their brain, well at least that the area where there is electricity so it is considered the used part of brain. But what about the rest.

Some people belive that the rest of the brain is like Hard drive where we store information which we need, and even lot's of information that we don't need. Like when you are traveling by bus, maybe at mean time listening to music and reading some interesting book your brain stores all of the information, even that what you see in distance of buses window but you don't realize that it does that.

Now this way of maybe reading the book and listening to music, and that you know egzactly at the same time what words did author wrote and sing -- and than memorize it would be a wonderfull thing.

To improve memory i tried this technique. Before i went to sleep i started counting just simply from 1 to ... Now when i counted to 100 i tried counting another 1 to each 10 i counted the first count. When i reached 200 with first count and than it was 10 with second count. Now i added another count which was based on every 5th count of second count. It became really complicated to count all of those numbers and remember them but when i lost track i tried to remember what i learned that day. It was piece of cake.

I tried this technique only once and it worked, but it is based on counting so it's kinda boring. If someone else can maybe figure out how to improve this (and please no Yoga links ) it would be nice.

My point in all of this is the abbility when working, to bee able to do several things at the same time and be same good at all of them...

[Saint_Michael]

From what I know is that we use 105 of our brain, but from you post yeah I agree that if our brain was like a computer then most of our consist of RAM. Because or memories are floating around until we need to call upon them to do a simple task like blinking.

Even the Smartest people in the world can't tap into the other parts, although their brain has unlock parts to make them remember more and of course think better. Of course I don't know if they solved this or not but I do believe that people with photographic memories are somewhat a key into unlocking the mysteries of how our mind works.

Of course all we see from sci-fi couldn't even possibly happen like reading minds or being psychic.

Who knows maybe when the next evolution of man happens then maybe we will unlock another part of the mystery.

[thejestergl]

Oh I don't think we use 10% of our brains, in fact I believe we use less than that don't we? I know that people who use that much of their brain are actually super geniouses, however this also makes them lack in other areas (such as communication). Having a super brain that can allow you do many things at once may actually just 'fry' your brain so to speak. Then again, if you used even 30% of your brain you could do so much more. The question is how do you access such a high amount >.>

[quakesand]

I don't understand the technique your using, please give me a example..
I think some parts of our brain is psychic, because many people has already prove that they can do psychic things with their brain.
Such as bending spoons and reading minds.
I had also proven to myself that sometimes I (and most people) knows what exactly will happen next.
And I always know if something big is going to happen, or knowing a place you never gone before and feels very familiar with it, after a few minutes, days or maybe years, something will happen at that place when i was looking at the same spot last time I saw it.
Sometimes I also seems really familiar to someone doing something that rarely happens and than happened again after few days.
Sometimes my dreams also tells me something, such as what will happen today.
I remember two experience I had before.
The first one is when I only remember a part of the dream, is my teacher teaching something, then i wonder what is that.
When i was in school, I was doing other stuff, my teacher notices and asks me what she just said, then I suddenly remember that this looks just like i were in that dream, everyone is doing the same thing i dreamed.
I then replied the thing I heard when teacher is teaching in my dream. It was correct.
And the second one is, me and my cousin is riding my bicycle beside the road.
then a car went really fast and almost hit me, he horned really hard when he got through me.
Then later in the afternoon we gone back to my cousin's house and rest.
We talked about our dreams, and i asked him if he had a zombie dream.
He told me he just had one this morning, he also told me what happened in the dream, and it is like what happened to me and him today, the car went through me is like the big zombie throwing a car at us in the dream. And this frightened us...
There is also a time that i felt something big is going to happen, and then my mom brings me and my sister to eat outside, and then when we go into the restaurant, I saw my headmaster sitting inside...scary...

But I can't figure out what happened when i was 4 (And i started to remember things at December of my 3 years old, fast heh?) Something weird happened, hope that someone can solve it.
I was lying on the sofa when my sister is making small boxes at the back of the sofa.
I was looking into the sofa when I heard a few voices that sounds like people having a conference in english.
Because I'm a Chinese, I can't understand english when i was a kid. This is why I can't remember what they said now. I asked my sister if they talked or make any sound. They looked at me like and I told them I heard words whispering in my ears when i was lying on the sofa which i can't understand.
They said they never even made a sound. I asked and asked them to tell the truth, but they really did not make any sound, and they look really innocent. If any one had any similiar things that happened just like this, tell me.

[bunlytek]

The present World-Wide Web, the distributed hypermedia interface to the information available on the Internet, is in a number of ways similar to a human brain, and is likely to become more so as it develops. The core analogy is the one between hypertext and associative memory. Links between hyperdocuments or nodes are similar to associations between concepts as they are stored in the brain. However, the analogy goes much further, including the processes of thought and learning.

[brainless]

bunlytek: Nice try but computers are way less capable of doing things than a human brain. well, if you leave out stuff like memories and maths
"The web" is not thinking for itself, it always requires a human being feeding something into it; if asked whether something is right or wrong, just about no computer will say "something in between"...

[matak]

to quakesand

i had a same things with dreams. just not so vivid. i dreamt few days ago some horrifying dream with my car and 3 days later i had an accident. i was ok, but my car isn't.

dreams can be interpretations of future that is going to happen, but then again if we try to avoid something that happened to us in a dream maybe something even worst could happen. that is the balance of nature and karma which i really belive in.

who nows, for me maybe if i didn't drive my car after that dream maybe something even worse could happen to me.

that term of listening to dreams and trying to change results of them i call "play life". it is not smart to play life beacouse you never know the result of what might happen.

some people had even had experiences of talking some other language in dreams. i could interpret that like maybe you saw some Spanish movie, and without even realizing you learned Spanish in your brain, so later in your dream you recall that movie and use it to speak Spanish.

Quote

I don't understand the technique your using, please give me a example..

i'm not using this technique couse it is boring. i would rather have single tasking brain than counting numbers each night before going to sleep. it is to boring. but I'll repeat it again maybe you have better nerves

You start counting from 1,2,3.. to 96,97,98,99,100..
When you reach 100 with FIRST COUNT you start SECOND COUNT for each 10 (or 5 (it is harder when you use 5, or even maybe 8)) counts of FIRST COUNT you count 1 to SECOND COUNT.

Do you see what happens. You have to concentrate on FIRST COUNT and on SECOND COUNT at the same time. It becomes really complicated.

Then when you have counted 200 with first count you probably have like 50 in second count...

Then you start THIRD COUNT in which you count 1 for each 5-10-or 8 of second count which is still based on first one

He he, i hope this is a bit simpler explanation, although my native language is Croatian so i find it quite difficult to explain this in English

[jhsmurray]

The human brain is able to multitask, and does so every day, at all times. The intricacy of these tasks can be quite complex - breathing, digesting, observing, interpreting, learning, etc etc. should not be underrated. From a purely physical perspective, the neural network of the biological brain contains a very large number of neurons (100 billion for human brains), with synaptic connections between them to introduce an exponentially huge number of possible calculations. Someday computers might catch up, but I don't think it will happen in the near future.

It's also important to observe that much of this multitasking is "behind the scenes", in the human sub-conscious. That aside, I read somewhere that we can train our minds to consciously do up to three relatively simple tasks simultaneously. But I think matak's question is: how can we either 1) increase the number of conscious tasks, or 2) increase the level of complexity of conscious tasks?

My answer is that I'm not sure if we can. Even though our brains are physically very complex, so are the tasks that we might be trying to do. But latent functionality may be in the sub-conscious...

A side question to this thread is, how can we tap into this sub-conscious power and make it work for us on the conscious level? Even if we could, should we? I mean, if we change how our brain works on such a fundamental level, do we change ourselves into something else? We might have to wait until research illuminates the darkest recesses of the mind (cue theme to the movie Forbidden Planet... )

[Saint_Michael]

thejestergl, on Dec 11 2006, 09:11 PM, said:

Oh I don't think we use 10% of our brains, in fact I believe we use less than that don't we? I know that people who use that much of their brain are actually super geniouses, however this also makes them lack in other areas (such as communication). Having a super brain that can allow you do many things at once may actually just 'fry' your brain so to speak. Then again, if you used even 30% of your brain you could do so much more. The question is how do you access such a high amount >.>

Call me stupid unless no one else knew this but the 10% of the brain usage is a myth, I was going to do some searching on this and I saw quite a few sties about the 10% myth. Go figure on that so the actual usage could be more or could be less.

http://faculty.washi...ler/tenper.html

bunlytek, on Dec 12 2006, 03:30 AM, said:

The present World-Wide Web, the distributed hypermedia interface to the information available on the Internet, is in a number of ways similar to a human brain, and is likely to become more so as it develops. The core analogy is the one between hypertext and associative memory. Links between hyperdocuments or nodes are similar to associations between concepts as they are stored in the brain. However, the analogy goes much further, including the processes of thought and learning.

brainless, on Dec 12 2006, 05:47 AM, said:

bunlytek: Nice try but computers are way less capable of doing things than a human brain. well, if you leave out stuff like memories and maths
"The web" is not thinking for itself, it always requires a human being feeding something into it; if asked whether something is right or wrong, just about no computer will say "something in between"...

Brainless what about A.I, it is run by computers although with the human hand, so in a way a computer brain learns like we do although in a limited capacity. Although I somewhat get the memory from bunlytek posts the world wide web might need some explaining. What about internet viruses and search engines bots, yes the are program to do something but after that most of them "think" and I put that loosely to look around for other computers.

jhsmurray, on Dec 12 2006, 09:17 AM, said:

The human brain is able to multitask, and does so every day, at all times. The intricacy of these tasks can be quite complex - breathing, digesting, observing, interpreting, learning, etc etc. should not be underrated. From a purely physical perspective, the neural network of the biological brain contains a very large number of neurons (100 billion for human brains), with synaptic connections between them to introduce an exponentially huge number of possible calculations. Someday computers might catch up, but I don't think it will happen in the near future.

It's also important to observe that much of this multitasking is "behind the scenes", in the human sub-conscious. That aside, I read somewhere that we can train our minds to consciously do up to three relatively simple tasks simultaneously. But I think matak's question is: how can we either 1) increase the number of conscious tasks, or 2) increase the level of complexity of conscious tasks?

My answer is that I'm not sure if we can. Even though our brains are physically very complex, so are the tasks that we might be trying to do. But latent functionality may be in the sub-conscious...

A side question to this thread is, how can we tap into this sub-conscious power and make it work for us on the conscious level? Even if we could, should we? I mean, if we change how our brain works on such a fundamental level, do we change ourselves into something else? We might have to wait until research illuminates the darkest recesses of the mind (cue theme to the movie Forbidden Planet... )

I don't remember where I saw this but it said something in the likes of that are brain can do like 1 trillion tasks a minute. I think that was broke down to come to that conclusion, but thats how fast are brain is. As I type right now my brain is telling me to type the letters I see on the keyboard with my fingers. Then look at the screen at the same time to make sure I am spelling this correctly and making complete sentences, although I am not for some strange reason. ( )

How could you explain someone going senile? to dumb this down good, your brain is basically breaking down and so all the messages your brain is trying to send out is getting confused and so instead of doing one thing your brain is doing something else. So with that your trying to force your brain to work hard to get the right signals.

I believe that it would be impossible to bring something from the sub-conscious, because then your brain is aware of it and then it becomes conscious and then you know it. Of course I don't think anyone would want to take the risk of forcing electric signals into someone's brain with out messing them up for life or make them brain dead.

[matak]

to Saint_Michael

That site you posted at first looks like it brakes the 10% myth but this that i read at the end still makes me wonder

Quote

Many studies have shown that if the input to a particular neural system is eliminated, then neurons in this system will not function properly. This has been shown quite dramatically in the visual system: complete loss of vision will occur if visual information is prevented from stimulating the eyes (and brain) early in development. It seems reasonable to suggest that if 90% of the brain was not used, then many neural pathways would degenerate. However, this does not seem to be the case. On the other hand, the brains of young children are quite adaptable. The function of a damaged brain area in a young brain can be taken over by remaining brain tissue. There are incredible examples of such recovery in young children who have had large portions of their brains removed to control seizures. Such miraculous recovery after extensive brain surgery is very unusual in adults.

Now if children have the ability to regenerate damaged brain and use it, does it mean that the part they're using for that regeneration is never going to be used for anything else. So that practically means that they are going to be less smart their hole lives than the other children which had normal life without damaged brain.

Now, i belive that those children who managed to regenerate brain are going to be even smarter, beacouse they have learned how to transform certain parts of brain that would probably be used for something else, and now they can probably transform other parts of brain they don't really need in those they do. Ok, i know i'm talking some really silly things here but here's the idea.

Let's say we are using 100% of our brain (which i really don't think is true) but let's say you can perhaps transform that part of the brain that is used for smell to the part used for listening. I myself don't really care what am i eating so i really don't need that smell so much but i really care to what am i listening so i would like to trade my smell for my hearing. Do you see what am i getting at?

In that 100% used brain there is at least 20% used for something that is totally unnecessary. So probably training the brain to use it for the things you like more could be possible.