I bet this topic has been bandied about before: Is there any validity to the statement that we only use “10%” of our brain? I know it differs from person to person in regards to what percent they say we use (some say 20%, etc.)… But I’ve read some articles that say we use ‘all of our brain’ and reports that say otherwise are incorrect. I’d appreciate if you can dedicate at least .1% of your brain on this question.
Cecil on this topic. The upshot is, no, this isn’t ture.
To clarify, I know there’s a straight dope on this:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_028.html
I’m just curious what others think.
Yeah, found the article, but forgot to mention it. Basically, let me restate the question in a different manner: Do you think we can use our brain for things such as mind over matter, and if so, is it because we are utilizing more of our brain, a larger percentage, so to speak?
I’m not sure what you mean by “mind over matter”. If you mean things like telekinesis or ESP, then no. We don’t use only 10% or our brains, but we don’t use 100% all the time either–that is to say, not every neuron in your brain is firing continuously at the same time. But, if you look at an MRI scan of an active brain, every section will show some level of activity. And during the course of an average day, very nearly 100% of the active neurons in your brain will get used for some purpose or other.
I’m sure this will get moved any second (since it isn’t really a factual question)… but I’ll go ahead and answer 
I can’t say that things like mind-over-matter are impossible… but I don’t think they’ve found any parts of the brain that don’t seem to do anything when they’ve mapped them (using CT scans and such), so using more of your brain wouldn’t necessarily accomplish anything special.
However, there are systems being developed that let you use mind-over-matter scientifically. You where a headband that can detect changes in alpha wave patterns, and then that headband feeds signals to a computer that can do whatever it is you program it to do. I’m guessing that’s as close as you can get.
When I move my arm, that is mind over matter-
the link between mind and muscle is the most perplexing thing in the world,
as far as I am concerned.
SF worldbuilding at
http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html
Considering that there is no known mechanism that could cause small electric and chemical impulses in our brains to have any effect on manipulating matter outside of the brain, then I don’t see how “mind over matter” could even be considered.
I mean, if you assume that there exists some sort of telekenisis, then where does the energy needed to move an object come from (the brain can’t generate that much power)? What is its transport mechanism?
There is a situation where a significant percentage of your neurons fire at once. We generally refer to it as a grand mal seizure.
Bob Diamond: I use 48% of my brain. Do you know how much you use?
Daniel Miller: I dunno…47%?
Bob Diamond: (laughing) No, three.
Daniel Miller: Only 3%???
Bob Diamond: Of course. Everyone on earth uses 3% of their brain. Well, 3 to 5 percent.
Daniel Miller: 3 to 5 percent of my brain? Nobody on Earth uses more that that?
Bob Diamond: Well, when you use more than 5% of your brain, you don’t want to be on Earth, believe me.
[/end “D.F.L.” hijack]
I believe it is Terry pratchett who observed that, even if telekinesis were possible, there’s no reason to suppose the princinples of leverage and action/reaction would be negated - try to move something large or distant with the power of your mind and you just end up prying your brain clean out of your skull.
Are you sure you can spare %1? 
Well… if there were no such thing as mind over matter, how do you explain the existance of David Blaine?
Hollywood.
From what I remember, the whole 10 percent thing was based on one offhand quote. It wasn’t meant to be an accurate statistic, yet somehow it became one. Somewhere along the line this got merged with the theory that smarter people use more of their brain. Neurobiologists actually found that the opposite was true. If you have a bunch of people a standard test, for example, (something like an SAT type test) then the smarter people actually use less of their brain while working on the test. The less intelligent people would have brain activation over huge areas of their brains, while the more intelligent people would have comparitavely very little brain activation. From this they concluded that smarter people don’t use more of their brain, they use what they have more efficiently.
Since the less intelligent people didn’t suddently have telekenesis of their pencils and such, I think we can safely say that no bizarre mind over matter things come into play when we use more of our brain.
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/tenper.html
An nice article on it. With the misquoted quote.
** KGS, ** I was about to put “Defending Your Life” Down! The guy says that you use 3% to 5% of your brain, and since then I’ve personally believed that. It also said that 74 degrees Fahrenheit is the perfect temperature… I think that was it. But everything in that movie was pretty factual, so I believed it.