Ian Logan

UWRT 1102-010
Dr. Rand
3/30/2015
Inquiry Project
TITLE
Lights start flashing in an eerily repeating pattern. Suddenly, the stage springs to
life once more as the cameraman gives the cue to the host.
Andddddd..were back! Ladies and gentlemen welcome back to Whos the Next
Little Einstein? The show gathers the best and brightest from around the nation and
pits them against one another. They are allowed to bring any textbook or paper with
them as long as it will fit in a standard sized backpack. Im Eric Waldridge, your
host, and we are down to our final contestants, Little Johnny and Mary Jane. Johnny,
a short blonde-haired boy of twelve, is from Boring, Oregon. Fun fact, this city has a
little more excitement than the name implies. Hahaha. Anyway, Mary Jane, his
opponent, comes from the Big Apple. She easily beat out all of her classmates to
claim her spot here on the show. She will definitely be hard to beat as she just blew
us all away with her answer to, What is something we can improve on in our
government? Outstanding, I did not know a girl of her age knew the inner workings
of the government like that. It will be interesting to see how Little Johnny responds
to the question I about to present him. Does he have what it takes to beat his
competition? Or will Mary Jane add another trophy to her collection? Lets find out!
Johnny, your turn. Your question is, the human brain. Does it have any limits?
Funny you should ask that, Eric, I just finished researching that very question and
actually have a copy of the paper I wrote on it here with me here in my backpack.
Just give me one secondgot it. Ahem.
(Below is a copy of Johnnys paper. It has been copied here for your convenience.)
Johnny Applecore
March 20, 2015
Elementary English
Is Our Brain Limited or Limitless?
The brain is an extremely powerful organ. It not only stores what we see, hear,
taste, and touch for use later on in life, but it also helps us come up with new ideas
and inventions. As we grow up, we can wrap our minds around and understand
more complicated and complicated concepts. What other body part has this kind of
functionality? Nothing. As time continues to progress, mankind has invented and
created more intricate machines. Our minds have imagined previously unheard of
stories and numerous people have fallen in love with the things our minds have
brought into existence. However, will we ever reach our capacity to what we can
comprehend and store? Will we ever reach a point where anything and everything
has already been thought of by another person?

A good amount of American may think that humans only use ten percent of
their brain and, in order to increase our brain limit, we simply need to tap into that
unused ninety percent. However, that is simply a fallacy that has somehow
circulated into the minds of many people and deceived them. Barry Gordon at Johns
Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore disputes this misconception by saying
[W]e use virtually every part of the brain the brain is active almost all the time
(Boyd). A widely known fact is not always true. Scientists have done extensive
research on this topic. They too wonder whether or not human brains have a limit to
what they hold. For instance, Thomas Hills from the University of Warwick and Dr.
Ralph Hertwig from the University of Basel looked into this subject. They concluded
that people cannot have their cake and eat it too when it comes to more brain
functions. People with higher IQs, better memories, or savant like tendencies has a
good chance of suffering from a disorder. There is an exchange when it comes to
higher brain function, and one person cannot possess all of the special brain
functions currently known to man (University of Warwick).

Works Cited

Sloane, Paul. Why are Children so much more Creative than Adults?. destination innovation.
www.destination-innovation.com/articles, 2015. Web. 30 Mar. 2015.
University of Warwick. "Human brains unlikely to evolve into a 'supermind' as price to pay
would be too high." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, LLC 7 Dec. 2011. Web. 31 Mar. 2015
Boyd, Robynne. Do People Only Use 10 Percent of Their Brains?. Scientific American.
Scientific American, a Division of Nature America, Inc. 7 Feb. 2008. Web. 13 Mar. 2015
Fox, Douglas. The Limits of Intelligence. Grochbiology.com. Scientific American Jul. 2011.
Web. 31 Mar. 2015.