Is the human mind limited?
 

I watched a documentary yesterday about wonder-children, children that have a special talent.

There was a professor that had studied this phenomenon and he said that their minds burn bright but fast. He said that they aquire the skills and knowledge in ~30 years that a normal person needs 60-90 years to aqquire (given there is no mental degeneration or diseases).
But when they reach that level of knowledge they seem to reach some kind of stopsign. It is as if there is an upper limit to how much a human mind is capable of. They rise much faster than the rest of us but they hit the "roof" much faster aswell.

What I'm wondering is, do you think there is an upper limit to how much the human mind can understand? Is the professor right or just jealous?
Wich is preferable, to live a normal life and have a mental evolution similar to most people on this planet or to be a genious and evolve quicker but burn out faster aswell?

He's probably right and wrong.

The brain is a complex machine, a biological machine, but a machine nontheless.

As such it is limited.

Where it's limits lie is anyone's guess, we really don't have the first clue yet. Not even the prof.

I reckon.

We only use a fraction of our brain, so if someone finds a way to unlock our potential then our understanding of the human mind would have to be reconfigured.

untrue. We use every last neuron in our brain.

Indeed we do, but we only intensively use specific portions of the brain at any one time. (if any part is being used intensively at all)

This isn't really an answer, but I read somewhere that there are more possible neural signal pathways in the human brain than there have been subatomic events in the universe ever. Think about combinatorial maths and this starts to make sense. Also bear in mind that almost all of those possible paths would probably not be any part of coherent thought, just as there are infinite numbers of possible complete chess games, but an infinite number of them are ones that contain nonsensical loops.

The brain is like a portal to our true self. It's a tool in which can help us or hurt us, depending on how we use it. Effectively used, the brain's leftover "98%" can be used- it has infinite powers that we don't realize. In a physical sense, it seems impossible to use it all, but then why do we ponder why we don't use more than 2% of it?
Coming into physical form, we are raw of any knowledge, yet have forgotten our purpose and abilities as beings. We don't realize that we are all gifted, if we just apply it into our lives. For some it comes natural- from music to drawing to electronics- to psychic awareness and tolerance for pain.
Some work on and develop gifts, as we all can. Using our true talents, which we all have, we are using more of our brain. No, there is no such thing as the actual mind itself being limited, but our perception and views in which we are brainwashed ourselves or by others can be limited.
The mind is a powerful thing.

We're always using all parts of our brains, it's just that we don't use more than about 15% at one time. It's important to understand that different parts of the brain are used for different things, or are only intermediary staging areas. Some parts of the brain only process stimuli such as hunger, fatigue, physical pain, and arousal, while the outer cortex is reserved for the higher functions of coherent thought. There's nothing mystical about brain activity :).

I repeat:
We use every last neuron in our brain.

The 10% "statistic" (or 2% in this case) is a lie, made up from whole cloth by paranormalists who wished to legitamise their conning.

http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percnt.htm

By CSFilm:I agree. Just wording it in a manner that people would understand without ellaborating too much.

Regziever, do you remember the professor's name? I'd really like to read up more on that study.

A lot of those "wonder children" grow up to become failures later in life for various psychological reasons. I wonder how difficult it is to separate out those types of effects?

Anyway, some prodigies grow up just fine. I know a couple of people who might be put into this class, but they're under 30.

Unfortunently not.
All I know is that he is Swedish.
He was professor in either psychology or neurology, I'm not sure which.

I think the human mind is unlimited as far as knowledge is concerned. But there isn't much "understanding" at all going on in there.

Really? unlimited?

Let us make some assumptions:

1 Knowledge requires (and is based on) information.

2 The mind's ability to store information is mirrored in the brain's physical state. (*see note)


So, given the above assumptions your statement would allow us to conclude that a physical system (i.e. the brain) had the ability to store an infinite abount of information...surely an impossibility?

So we now have to accept that due to the laws of physics, the brain's ability to store information is limited, and hence the minds ability to store knowledge is also limited.

So, the only way to continue to hold the belief that the mind is unlimited is to disregard 2, and accept some sort of "magic" brain, which disregards the laws of physics.

So. is this your belief?



*note: This is not necessarrily a statement of full blown materialism (which I happen to support), but rather claims that "knowledge" is contained physically within the brain leaving open where the "processing" is coming from (materialism = "processing" also from the brain, dualism = "processing" from elsewhere).

To my way of thinking, knowledge is not necessarily a measure of the amount of information stored in the brain. A lot of information is not significant or useful.

Your statements are dependent upon the way the term "knowledge" is defined. Defining it the way you do, you are correct.

Thanks.

I agree, there is ALOT more to knowledge than mere information.
(Knowledge would be more to do with the ability to "interpret" this information)
However, surely all knowledge requires at least some information?

How would you define knowledge?

I would say that knowledge is an interpretive process. Knowing something is comprehending the significant patterns organizing relavant information. As for what constitutes relevant information - that would be situational and involve some observation, experimentation, and testing over time.

The fact that we wonder if we are limited says it all.

Is the capacity of the human brain limitless? How can we answer that when we don't even know HOW information is "stored" in the brain or if it's even stored in a conventional sense. It's not a hard drive. There are no magnets in there.

However it is processed, taking in huge amounts of raw knowledge isn't necessarily going to do you any good.

Agreed, my brain is no hard drive.
My mind is something quite mysterious to me.