Further to Neuromyth: We only use 10% of our brain, at Evolution News & Views, Casey Luskin reviews a film Lucy that depends on that mythic claim:
Morgan Freeman plays a professor who has conceived hypotheses about what might happen to a person if she started to use more than 10-15 percent of her brain. Lucy confirms and surpasses his predictions. Here’s where the evolutionary connection comes in, starting with the parallel between Johansson’s Lucy and Lucy the famous australopithecine.
The film opens with a scene of the ancient Lucy, drinking water from a river. In another early scene, the boyfriend of Johansson’s Lucy tells her that he went to a museum and found that Lucy was the name of the first woman. Just as that Lucy was supposedly a step in our evolution, in that she purportedly used more of her brain than her ancestors did, so Scarlett Johansson’s Lucy is a further evolutionary step. Lucy the australopithecine makes additional artsy appearances throughout the movie.
This is the main message: that transhumanism is a reality, and humans will be able to continue their prior evolution and entirely surpass our current stage of intelligence. Human technology — in this case through drug use – might be the key to enable humans to reach their maximum intellectual potential.
Or not.
You’d never know it from Mr. Besson’s treatment of the subject, but it’s a complete myth that humans only use 10 percent of our brains. From Scientific American: … More.
Scarlett Johansson also making heads here, if the name rings a bell.
See also: Human origins: The war of trivial explanations
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