Ten Percent of the Brain Myth • Hacker News Board

Re: Ten Percent of the Brain Myth

#91

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 4:27 PM UTC

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #84

TillE wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Gladwell is a particularly insightful guy, but as someone who has actually read a couple of his books, I feel like the "10,000 hours" thing is frequently misrepresented. The claim isn't "put in 10k hours and you'll magically become an expert". It's "if you want to become an expert, you have to put in 10k hours". Necessary but not sufficient.

You can become an expert in cooking a hot dog without 10,000 hours of practice.

Has anyone ever recognize "expert" skill in hot dog cooking? Cooking, certainly, but hot dog cooking?

Re: Ten Percent of the Brain Myth

#92

Post by wishawa » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 4:31 PM UTC

ansible wrote: post #86

I recall hearing this myth being circulated for decades. One of the reasons it likely persists is that people don't have a good understanding of what their brain does on a day-to-day basis, and they don't have a good idea of just how hard some of those tasks are. We do things like walk across a room and pick up an object, and don't really think about all the processing that goes into that. You have an accurate and dy…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox

Re: Ten Percent of the Brain Myth

#93

Post by ConstantVigil » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 4:37 PM UTC

readenough wrote: post #73

One of my favorite myths is that an idea can be declared false simply because the science does not yet exist to prove it true. I think we all have beliefs that have not yet been verified. The key is to let go of those beliefs when the science does show the errors in those beliefs. Myths have played an important role in helping us understand our surroundings. Certainly, though, they have often been misused and exploit…

No post body was provided.

Re: Ten Percent of the Brain Myth

#94

Post by seydor » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 4:38 PM UTC

I'm concerned about the low level of neuroscientific knowledge in the general population. This is just an example, "humans generally use only 10 percent". There is no "human" who "uses the brain", the brain is the human, or rather the human is in the brain. Due to a high level of societal and political inertia we are indiferrent to facts of the brain that affect our biases , memory, ethics and judgement. This will become a problem the more we understand (and manipulate) the brain.

Re: Ten Percent of the Brain Myth

#95

Post by GuB-42 » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 4:38 PM UTC

lotophage wrote: post #16

riebschlager wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of post-internet myths that are humming along just fine. :D It's a crazy phenomenon to watch play out.

Absolutely true, but there somehow seems different quality to them. The myths of old seemed to be little factoids that were not easy to verify and were taken at face value, then just spread until they became "common knowledge". The new ones seem to have an almost religious quality to them. Flat-earthers for example, if someone told me 25 years ago that this would be a thing I would have just laughed.

Flat-earth is a conspiracy theory, flat-earthers are told that the earth is round, but they don't believe it, they usually also believe in all sorts of other theories: fake moon landing, chemtrails, covid 5G, aliens, etc... make your choice. Conspiracy theories went strong even before the internet, some had devastating consequence. At least, flat-earth is harmless, it only makes you sound stupid.

And I also believe that there are not that many "true" flat earthers. There is a significant amount of trolls and people who like the exercise in epistemology.

I think the reason flat earth get so much visibility is that it is one the most obviously wrong belief there is, people like to point out dumb people in order to feel smart by comparison. In fact, the meme is not the idea that the earth is flat, it is that there are people out there who believe the earth is flat. It is almost a meta-myth, I mean, what proof do you have that flat earth as a community is a thing? I know there is rather good evidence that it is the case but who bothered to check?

Re: Ten Percent of the Brain Myth

#96

Post by nathias » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

like left hemisphere is for creativiy, right is for math and other such nonsense it seems to be the right fit for motivational posters/memes so popular in the corpoculture

Re: Ten Percent of the Brain Myth

#97

Post by Scarblac » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 4:40 PM UTC

pdpi wrote: post #52

TillE wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't remember the exact context at this point, but I've definitely encountered someone complaining about "ascorbic acid" as an additive, which is of course vitamin C.

Let's not forget the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide. Used as an industrial solvent, its vapours can cause severe burns, yet they put it in food.

A so-called "enabling component" of acid rain, and found in all polluted waterways in the world.

That said, nowadays I don't consider these jokes so funny anymore, people really believe similar stuff these days and post-truth bs is used to gain real power by people without shame.

Re: Ten Percent of the Brain Myth

#98

Post by radley » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 4:40 PM UTC

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #39

This reminds me of the first "scientific myth" I witnessed. It was in the 80's in France where we had a photocopied page with "the most dangerous additives". The worst was E330. 40 years later, I still remember it. My parents had a copy from sime friends and these well educated people (dad is an engineer and mom a lawyer) checked everything against the list. Just because it was "from the Villejuif hospital". It was a…

Or the most insidious of all, Dihydrogen Monoxide aka H2O.

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dihydrogen-monoxide-hoax

Re: Ten Percent of the Brain Myth

#99

Post by x3n0ph3n3 » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 4:43 PM UTC

There's a very simple counter to the claim:

Saying that you only use ten percent of your brain is like saying we only use 33% of a normal traffic light.

Re: Ten Percent of the Brain Myth

#100

Post by bolasanibk » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 5:26 PM UTC

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #35

riebschlager wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of post-internet myths that are humming along just fine. :D It's a crazy phenomenon to watch play out.

Pre-internet, it was harder to debunk myths but also harder to spread them. Nowadays, it’s easier to debunk myths but also much easier to spread them. These do not necessarily cancel out; as they say, “the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it.” As an extreme example, pre-internet, a conspiracy theory-inclined person might randomly run across a handful of full-b…

Hard agree. It's very easy to find people who agree with whatever your particular brand of crazy is. And it does not help that online people can say things they would never say face to face.