The whole brain usage potential bit has been largely misrepresented, as, barring injury or malformation, no area of our brain goes unused. Not everything is running at 100% capacity constantly, much like you wouldn't expect a quad core processor to sit under full load while typing up a message board reply with an IRC client running in the background. If everything in your brain was firing at once, the result would be unfathomably hectic. It would likely bottleneck somewhere, through no inherent fault of the brain itself, but nonetheless be the most spectacular manifestation of insanity.
The brain's potential can't be measured in terms of percentages, even on a case-by-case basis. We're all running within a comfortable margin of our potential, and the arbitrary limit of our potential can grow or shrink depending on the choices we make from day to day.
While it's true that the >10% thing was a hoax (should have known but never been bothered to check, my bad), and it's also true that all parts of the brain are known and used by the organism, that's not even close to tapping its potential. Knowing the function of each part doesn't mean too much.
Consider that a human brain is actually a very, VERY powerful supercomputer whose performance by far exceeds modern desktop computers and then some. If you just analyze the human visual system, you'll see that huge amounts of data far exceeding HDTV detail depth are being processed at enormous rates… so fast we don't even have time to think about it unless someone reminds us to! The neural system allows for very effective parallelism that helps in nonlinear pattern recognition no software is yet capable of. And keep in mind that our brains manage our whole organisms without even interrupting our thought process.
The problem with its low performance, speaking in computer hardware terms, is that we:
1) don't have any feasible ways of direct long-term memory access. In order to remember something, we go through whole chains of memories, and still may be unable to remember the event we were looking for. The information is still there, though;
2) have literally awful debugging interface. We have little to no ways of accessing our brain at a lower level without help from hypnosis, strong mind-altering substances, or some other external help. Because of that, most problems and other mental bugs that crawl in are usually there to stay;
3) don't have developed routines for really fast linear calculation. How many people are there who can multiply 4+ digit numbers without using tools? It's not like we lack processing power for it, though, as demonstrated by certain individuals;
4) are very rigid. Developed ways of thinking don't yield to changing themselves well, and sometimes at all;
5) are very autonomous. There are no manual ways to tweak the performance of a brain by assigning priorities to certain functions over the others. In fact, the only really manual way of doing something with your brain is learning something new and hoping it will override any conflicting or erroneous knowledge you have learnt in the past;
6) have the abilities to change or distort the characteristics of our perception (subjective time, for instance), but we barely, if ever, can control the quality and extent of these changes, or even induce them at will;
et cetera.
As you see, it's not that the hardware is ineffective per se, it's the interface that is. As such, I'm positive it's much less than even 1% we can take advantage of on our own will, in contrast to our organism's hardwired routines, which, unfortunately, only take what is required to solve a certain survival task.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Dear Bisqwit,
Why do you think that God exist? Also why do you think that your religion, Christianity, is the correct one? If the answer involves a personal experience, could you please explain it in some detail.
I realize you given brief reasons in response to a couple questions in the past, but the "why" was not the focal point of the questions and as a result your answers only touched upon your reasons.
Arf, I already wrote 75% of the answer once, then I accidentally closed the tab before posting it.
I'll write it again.
Ever considered using the tabmix+ extension for firefox? It has, among other things, a very handy "Undo Close Tab" option.
(This is actually not the first time I suggest it to you. I find it a bit strange that you use firefox and have many extension installed (which you recommend in your profile), but don't seem to be willing to try tabmix+.)
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
RT-55J wrote:
Do you have any thoughts in particular on the Large Hadron Collider?
A few pages backwards, Bisqwit wrote:
moozooh wrote:
Ten hours left until Large Hadron Collider activation. Do you think the result will be of global importance?
No.
People are hoping for higgs bosons and fearing for earth-gobbling black holes or strangelets, but I think neither is going to happen.
Don't ask why.
Would be cool though, place a black hole in an electromagnetic container in a museum.
Arf, I already wrote 75% of the answer once, then I accidentally closed the tab before posting it.
I'll write it again.
Ever considered using the tabmix+ extension for firefox? It has, among other things, a very handy "Undo Close Tab" option.
(This is actually not the first time I suggest it to you. I find it a bit strange that you use firefox and have many extension installed (which you recommend in your profile), but don't seem to be willing to try tabmix+.)
Firefox 3 has a recent-tabs-closed menu in history, too. I shall test it now, on this post. It successfully (sp?) restored my typing, too.
edit: Bisqwit: What are your favorite entrées and desserts, or any food for that matter?
There are a number of extradimensional shapes in which the universe could be contorted without having edges; the simplest being the hypersphere.
this simple cube is too complicated for my mind so i stick with the good old infinite universe because i don't like math so much because the only equation i know is divide by zero.
moozooh wrote:
The existence of a man-made book as a medium for a god's message sounds like a fundamental flaw by itself.
this sentence fascinates slightly so i can't help but to ask what would be a better medium than a book? personally i think it may be possible that god also used our brain and heart as a medium for his message.
While it's true that the >10% thing was a hoax (should have known but never been bothered to check, my bad),
i used to believe that the earth was round, but then i looked it up somewhere and i found that it was flat.
Superjupi wrote:
The brain's potential can't be measured in terms of percentages, even on a case-by-case basis.
your brain is more intelligent than mine and your avatar is cute because etna is young and i wish she was my girlfriend but she does almost not exist
Ever considered using the tabmix+ extension for firefox? It has, among other things, a very handy "Undo Close Tab" option.
Somewhere, I use it, and somewhere else, I don't. Probably I haven't installed it in that laptop in particular.
Also, I haven't actually tested whether the undo close also restores form contents.
flagitious wrote:
Why do you think that God exist? Also why do you think that your religion, Christianity, is the correct one? If the answer involves a personal experience, could you please explain it in some detail.
I cannot provide you with the tangible evidence you seek (though many try), and therefore no amount of explanations is going to be fruitful for discussion. Anything I could possibly say is anecdotal at best, even when it is first-hand -- and often, words do no justice to it.
RT-55J wrote:
Do you have any thoughts in particular on the Large Hadron Collider?
Fascinating quest, but I fear the results aren't going to be all that phenomenal as the critics and supporters alike expect.
eternaljwh wrote:
What are your favorite entrées and desserts, or any food for that matter?
No idea. I suppose that the stereotype of a nerd, in the particular aspect of considering eating to be a necessary interruption of daily routine best dealt with finding the formula/menu that fulfills the nutritionary requirements and then applying it each day, fits me to some degree.
i used to believe that the earth was round, but then i looked it up somewhere and i found that it was flat.
I am trying to understand how anyone can live in the real world and yet at the same time have such a poor grasp of reality. You question authority (which in and of itself is a good thing), but then what do you replace it with? More authority!...except this time the “authority” of new agebullshit. I don't believe the earth is round because people tell me it is. I believe it is round because it is round. (More specifically, if you ignore what people say and just look at the evidence, you see that the earth is in fact, round.) It is the same reason why I don't believe that evolution is wrong, that the pyramids were built by giants, that gravity is the same thing as electromagnetism, or that the many animals that, right this very moment, are being preyed upon and killed, dying of disease, starvation, or dehydration, consider earth a heavenly paradise.
Sorry for the rant but I get so annoyed when someone simultaneously denies science and uses a computer that owes its very existence to science. nfq shouldn't post anything about the physical world until he's had the giants build him a computer that is powered by the energy emanating from Stone Henge.
... because just recently, I had a kind of revival experience, and the last week has been quite a ride for me. ...
Could you describe this? It caught my attention.
And now for something completely different; I noticed that you have recently dabbled in Lua, as I have (although I am not nearly as good at it as you are, it would appear. D'oh.)... do you think it holds much potential for being a useful tool over what already exists (e.g. memory watch, etc)? If so, do go into specific areas you think it could be an assistance, perhaps not only to TASers, but to normal game players as well.
Hm, the board doesn't have a mood avatar setting for "curious". "Puzzled" might work, but this is not so much confusion as just wonder.
I playing nothing very well, but currently I possess the following musical instruments:
-- my voice (my range is from E-2 to B-3 (chest*), or G-3 to A-4 (falsetto); varies by a few semitones depending on the day and the time of day)
-- a piano keyboard (I can play melodies I remember with it, and repeat some chords, but I can't follow a rhythm and I have never received any training for it.)
-- an 18-note ocarina (can play simple melodies with it by note memory alone, or more complex ones by following a fingering chart.)
-- a flute (I have just learned how to produce notes from the lowest octave, excluding F (for some reason, I can't produce F despite the correct fingering); haven't played any melodies yet)
*) Meaning there's exactly one transponation on which I can sing "taivaan isä pitää huolta lapsistaan ja antaa voimaa päivään uuteen" (Father in Heaven takes care of his children, and empowers for the day new) without troubles.
... because just recently, I had a kind of revival experience, and the last week has been quite a ride for me. ...
Could you describe this? It caught my attention.
I went ahead and answered this question privately, because I don't think I'm ready to talk about it publicly.
Xkeeper wrote:
And now for something completely different; I noticed that you have recently dabbled in Lua, as I have (although I am not nearly as good at it as you are, it would appear. D'oh.)... do you think it holds much potential for being a useful tool over what already exists (e.g. memory watch, etc)? If so, do go into specific areas you think it could be an assistance, perhaps not only to TASers, but to normal game players as well.
Yes, I think it has potential for being an useful tool for all purposes of extending the emulator's functionality, provided that sufficient hooks to the emulator's functionality are provided :)
For example, I don't think that I could produce my tile tracker as a LUA script... without access to scrolling registers and the whole graphical screens, and fast screen pasting/blending functions in LUA.
I haven't much ventured into trying to guess what LUA will be used for in the future; other people are much ahead me in ideas.
Why do you think that God exist? Also why do you think that your religion, Christianity, is the correct one? If the answer involves a personal experience, could you please explain it in some detail.
I cannot provide you with the tangible evidence you seek (though many try), and therefore no amount of explanations is going to be fruitful for discussion. Anything I could possibly say is anecdotal at best, even when it is first-hand -- and often, words do no justice to it.
Thanks, although I did not seek evidence, but your personal reasoning.
i used to believe that the earth was round, but then i looked it up somewhere and i found that it was flat.
I am trying to understand how anyone can live in the real world and yet at the same time have such a poor grasp of reality.
Are you sure he wasn't simply joking? (I have hard time believing any sane person would write such a sentence seriously.)
I wondered that myself but nfq has said other things that are equally absurd. Still, maybe he has been secretly toying with us all along...
That's a bold guess. Literally.
Well what other alternatives are there besides actually believing the world is flat or just saying it is to see our reactions? I think he actually does believe it, based on his previous posts. Either way, I probably should never have bothered responding to his post. I just get really annoyed by ignorance.
I cannot provide you with the tangible evidence you seek (though many try), and therefore no amount of explanations is going to be fruitful for discussion. Anything I could possibly say is anecdotal at best, even when it is first-hand -- and often, words do no justice to it.
Thanks, although I did not seek evidence, but your personal reasoning.
The term "reasoning" goes hand-to-hand with the term "evidence".
I know you didn't say so, but it is difficult if not impossible to reason with anything if you cannot present evidence. Attempts are futile, because as long as evidence is not presented, it only calls for further arguments.
I consider philosophical logic as reasoning but not evidence in the sense we are talking about. I was expecting your answer to be either either philosophical or based on personal experience. Either of which would probably be interesting.
I would not consider a personal experience to be evidence either, since you could be lying, hallucinating, mistaken, etc. I am not saying that a personal experience for you would not be a good reason for you to believe, only that it would be a bad reason for me to believe since it is not my experience.
Edit: Hmm I guess you meant that providing non evidence will lead to arguments which typically go no where. I was more asking for my own interest than arguing though.
Hmm I guess you meant that providing non evidence will lead to arguments which typically go no where. I was more asking for my own interest than arguing though.
Allright, let's try it:
I know deep in my heart, that God exists -- this is called circular reasoning, but I know because God has put the trust into me --, and that Holy Spirit lives in me and rejoices when things happen that are God's will, and saddens when things happen that are not. I have experienced this joy, and it's many orders of magnitude greater joy than I have ever experienced when hearing the most amusing joke, or eating the most delicious food, or when bonding with the best friends, or when participating in the greatest musical concert, or when acquiring the most priced material possessions (for me anyway), or when being healed from a gruelling sickness.
I have seen God answer prayers miraculously (make things possible when the man sees no possible way), and I have heard accurate prophecies and words of knowledge. I have seen different God-fearing people follow God's instructions to complete a plan, where no single person knows the big picture until the puzzle pieces come together.
These things, make a very compelling argument that I cannot possibly ever prove to you.
