Professor R Ornstein, author of The Psychology of Consciousness
Overview of Chapter 2:
How Well Do You Know Your Brain?
Our Evolving Knowledge of Our Evolving Brains
The Brain Principle of Synergy
The Learning Principle of Repetition
Knowing about how your brain works can be likened to knowing how to drive a car: the better your knowledge of driving and how to do it, the better at it you will be. If you understand how your brain likes to learn and function, it will reward you by working better for you. You will find it easier to come up with inspired ideas, to remember information when you need it, and to find creative solutions to problems. As you will soon discover, the way you draw a Mind Map reflects the manner in which your brain likes to think. Mind Maps will help you unlock the full potential of your brain. First of all, let’s delve into the secrets of your brain. We’ll start with a little quiz.
How Well Do You Know Your Brain?
We use our brains all the time, but how much do we actually know about them? Take a look at the mini brain quiz below to find out how much you know about your personal powerhouse.
1. The number of brain cells in the human brain is:
a) 100,000?
b) 1,000,000?
c) 10,000,000?
d) 100,000,000?
e) 1,000,000,000?
f) 1,000,000,000,000?
2. The brain of an insect like the bee contains millions of brain cells. True/False?
3. The ‘population’ of brain cells in your head is larger than the number of human beings on planet earth. True/False?
4. We have been able to photograph a still picture of a brain cell, but have not yet been able to video a living brain cell. True/False?
5. The great geniuses in history such as Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Marie Curie, and Albert Einstein probably reached their maximum potential. True/False?
6. The human brain can grow new connections between brain cells as it ages but cannot generate entirely new cells. True/False?
7. The number of patterns of thought possible for your brain is equal to the number of atoms in:
a) A molecule?
b) A cathedral?
c) A mountain?
d) The moon?
e) The earth?
f) Our solar system including the sun?
g) Our galaxy and its 200 billion stars?
h) None of these?
8. Your brain is hard-wired – there is not much you can do to change its abilities. True/False?
9. The world’s best computers are now better than the human brain in their basic potential. True/False?
10. The cerebral cortex is the part of the brain normally referred to as the ‘left/right brain’. True/False?
11. The right cerebral cortex is the creative side of the brain. True/False?
12. The left cerebral cortex is the academic/intellectual side of the brain. True/False?
Answers are in Answers to Mini Brain Quiz. How many did you get right? Did some of the answers amaze you? Prepare to be even more impressed at how incredible that amazing brain of yours truly is.
Our Evolving Knowledge of Our Evolving Brains
Although the brain as we know it began evolving some 500 million years ago, the brain’s knowledge of the brain has a much, much shorter history. As little as 2,500 years ago humankind knew virtually nothing about the brain and its internal workings. Before the Ancient Greeks, the mind was not even considered to be part of the human body, but was thought to exist as some form of ethereal vapor, gas or disembodied spirit.
Surprisingly, the Greeks did not get us that much further, and even Aristotle – their most famous philosophical thinker and the founder of modern science – concluded that the centre of sensation and memory was located in the heart!
During the Renaissance in the late 14th century, a period of great intellectual awakening, it was finally realized that the centre of thought and consciousness was located in the head, and it was not until the late 20th century that the really great strides forward in our understanding of our own brains were made.
These developments are so significant that they are already changing the foundations of psychology, education, and business, and are emphasizing a fact sensed by many but until now impossible to ‘prove’ – that the average brain is far more capable than we ever believed!
A number of recent findings stand out as particularly significant.
One of the most important developments is the awareness by the brain of the brain itself. Consider this:
95 percent of all that the human race has ever discovered about the internal workings of its own brain has been discovered in the last 10 years!
What this means is that the human race is at a turning-point in evolution, where we are suddenly discovering amazing facts about our own brains (your brain!): we are beginning to realize that the bio-computer we all have between our ears is infinitely more powerful than we had ever thought.
Your Brain Cell – a History of Our Knowledge
For centuries the human brain had been considered merely as a three-and-a-half pound structureless, characterless lump of gray matter. And then the intrigue began. With the development of the microscope it was discovered that the brain’s crumpled outer layer was far more complex than had previously been suspected. It was found that the brain was composed of thousands of intricate and tiny rivers of blood that coursed throughout it, ‘feeding’ the brain.
Next came the revolutionary and revelationary discovery that the brain seemed to be composed of hundreds of thousands of tiny dots, the nature and function of which remained a mystery for a while. Then, as the power of the microscope increased, it was found that there were many more ‘dots’ than previously had been thought, and that each one appeared to have tiny extensions emanating from it. This launched a scientific saga similar to that of astronomy – in which the telescope and its discovery of the stars, solar systems, galaxies and clusters of galaxies was the twin of the microscope and its penetration of the universe of your brain.
As the super-sensitive electron microscope appeared on the scene, scientists observed that each brain was composed of millions of tiny cells, called neurons. The body of