Is this rational?

[Ihcisphysicist]

Since we use only a fragment of our brain when we are at the peak of our consciousness and that the rest is happening whithin our unconscious state so can it be said that we are on autopilot when we are awake and consciously aware.

[iNow]

What makes you think we only use a fragment of our brain? Much of what happens definitely occurs outside of conscious awareness, but that's unrelated to the claim of brain utilization being low overall.

[Ihcisphysicist]

Ok if you are saying that we use enough capacity of our brain when we are conscious then can you assure me that you also dictate the metabolism and other micro functions that your body perform or do you mean to to say that the activities of our body has nothing to do with the rest of the mind and that they are programmed to autonomously function on their own...

[ADreamIveDreamt]

You can have 100 numbers but can learn all 100 just from 10,that is basically how that all came to be by Understanding Numbers.

You can also have a Skull and build an entire Human body from just that...

 

I would not use the word autopilot because you would indeed need assistance from a person,as you are not a machine.

Edited September 13, 2013 by ADreamIveDreamt

[iNow]

Ok if you are saying that we use enough capacity of our brain when we are conscious then can you assure me that you also dictate the metabolism and other micro functions that your body perform or do you mean to to say that the activities of our body has nothing to do with the rest of the mind and that they are programmed to autonomously function on their own...

Not sure what you are saying here. Can you please restate this a bit more coherently?

[Ihcisphysicist]

What makes you think we only use a fragment of our brain? Much of what happens definitely occurs outside of conscious awareness, but that's unrelated to the claim of brain utilization being low overall.

what makes you think we use our brain to our hearts content.

[iNow]

I didn't say we did. Why are you asking me to explain an assertion I did not make, and will you now please answer the question posed to you instead of merely evading it?

[Ihcisphysicist]

I didn't say we did. Why are you asking me to explain an assertion I did not make, and will you now please answer the question posed to you instead of merely evading it?

surely we can't say that we are absolute when it comes to the utilisation of the complete potential of our brain let alone but , we can't say for sure that we possess total control over the behaviour of our physical self. Even when we are walking or working, eating, playing etc the only authority we had was to put the thought of doing such in our mind and the rest was our brain doing everything from twicthing of our eyebrows to exerting the muscles and clinching of our jaw. I bet that no one could keep track of every movement of our muscles,hands , legs etc which all seems to behave beyond our conscious grasp and act autonomously only that they are also being dictated by the rest of our brain which is not our conscious self.

[Ophiolite]

Is this an accurate representation of what you are saying:

1. A large proportion of our body's activities occur with minimal, or zero input from the brain.

2. A large proportion of our body's activities occur via subconscious control by the brain.

3. The conscious contorl of our actions requires the use of only a small proportion of the brain.

 

If this is not what you are saying could you make another attempt at clarifying. If this is what you are saying, then why are you saying it? This non-controversial and would be accepted by most people with just a moderate knowledg of neurology, etc. There is perhaps some other conclusion you are seeking to draw from this - if so it is not clear to me what this is.

[Ihcisphysicist]

 

 

Is this an accurate representation of what you are saying:
1. A large proportion of our body's activities occur with minimal, or zero input from the brain.
2. A large proportion of our body's activities occur via subconscious control by the brain.
3. The conscious contorl of our actions requires the use of only a small proportion of the brain.

I'll brief you with accordance to your doubts
your point (1) ofcourse everything is being manipulated/controlled by the brain but the concept is based upon which part of the mind for eg, conscious, subconscious, unconscious etc has greater influencd upon us. (2) yes indeed subconcious consists and exercises most of the capability of our brain/mind but the important thing is upto what extent does it influence an individual's mind as a whole. (3) well its actually not " how much is 'required' for the functioning of our conscious mind but rather 'if there is then what determines our consciouness".

Edited September 23, 2013 by Phi for All
fixed quote tags

[Roquentin]

I think there is some difficult terminology in this thread. From what I know:

a) We actually use nearly all of our brain. The idea that we don't is very outdated.

b) Theories of 'subconscious' or 'unconscious' are discouraged in Neuroscience because they aren't testable and it's much more helpful to talk about specific mechanisms, e.g. the phenomenon of blindsight, when talking about behavioral influences we aren't aware of.

To address OP

Since we use only a fragment of our brain we don't do this
when we are at the peak of our consciousness and that the rest is happening whithin our unconscious state there isn't much evidence of an unconscious 'state', just processing we aren't aware of because it may be irrelevant, or physiological processing that we can never be aware of so it's strange to even call it any kind of 'conscious'
so can it be said that we are on autopilot when we are awake and consciously aware. many things about how we behave really are on 'autopilot', see: procedural memory, but I'm not sure what you are getting at if it's not that