False memes

[Blaggard]

There are several false memes I could explain, creationism, the idea that there's no such thing as a free lunch. There is if you are a vagrant, and so on.

But one that struck me is the idea that at the full moon, people become wilder, A&Es fill up more readilly, and there are more lunatics who get strange urges. Lit moon a/tics. Total garbage. The idea of home advantage in football or soccer or shiz, conclusively disproven by some massive geek and statto.


So why are false memes so pervasive is my question in the information age? Urban myths are recounted as true, and the idea that Friday the 13th means anything more than a friday on the 13th of the month. Superstition and myth are still as powerful as they were, just we have new myths to ponder over and actually believe!

Ponder over that, don't break any mirrors, and if you cast no reflection or shadow you have no soul and are a vampire. Ok maybe not the last one unless you are ginger, but you get the gist.

[Arising_uk]

Is the idea of a "meme" a false 'meme'? As what was wrong with an "idea"?

[Blaggard]

A meme that causes people to alter their behaviour and beliefs and to even harm themselves or others is dangerous.

But yes even memes are in themselves ironic at times sometimes even when they are true...

[hammock]

So why are false memes so pervasive is my question in the information age?

Haven't you heard? It's because humans only use ten percent of their brains!

I.E., mythical explanations and pseudo-facts that provide fodder for movies ["Lucy"] are apparently more exciting to the public than dull, fun-depriving utterances like confirmation bias, cherry-picking, cognitive inertia, viral misapprehension, etc.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

So why are false memes so pervasive is my question in the information age?

Haven't you heard? It's because humans only use ten percent of their brains!

I.E., mythical explanations and pseudo-facts that provide fodder for movies ["Lucy"] are apparently more exciting to the public than dull, fun-depriving utterances like confirmation bias, cherry-picking, cognitive inertia, viral misapprehension, etc.

Talking about false memes, there's one right there. The nonsense that we only use 10 per cent of our brain. We use all of it.

[Arising_uk]

I think hammock was being ironic.

Although I'll still be going to see 'Lucy' as Luc Besson is the bees knees.

[Blaggard]

I think irony is one covenant of the meek, I think irony can be used but no man fears to kneel.

[hammock]

I think hammock was being ironic. Although I'll still be going to see 'Lucy' as Luc Besson is the bees knees.

I've heard that the film does furtively wink here and there it knows 10% is fertiliser a la bovine. Hopefully there's also a quick scene where Lucy buys a loosey.

[Blaggard]

By the way the 10% thing is so pervasive, it's not true, never has been and never will be, it's not even close, it's not even real, some people use all of their brain particularly when they are having some epileptic episode, some people use 1% of their brain when they are doing nothing much, I think though as an average it is correct, most people use nothing like their brain, most people are of course a little dim. It's so odd that such myths do become reality...

Suffice to say scientifically most people will use between 1% and 50% of their brain in their life, it does depend what they are doing though, listening to dumb memes 1%, inventing the wheel or perhaps a means to stop most people being idiots by iterating absurdities, 50%. Even when you are dreaming you are usually using way over 10% and sometimes up to 20% just to create a fiction that what was maybe induced by cheese.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

'Neurologist Barry Gordon describes the myth as laughably false, adding, "we use virtually every part of the brain, and that [most of] the brain is active almost all the time."[1] Neuroscientist Barry Beyerstein sets out seven kinds of evidence refuting the ten percent myth:[13]

1.Studies of brain damage: If 90% of the brain is normally unused, then damage to these areas should not impair performance. Instead, there is almost no area of the brain that can be damaged without loss of abilities. Even slight damage to small areas of the brain can have profound effects.
2.Brain scans have shown that no matter what one is doing, brains are always active. Some areas are more active at any one time than others, but barring brain damage, there is no part of the brain that is absolutely not functioning.
3.The brain is enormously costly to the rest of the body, in terms of oxygen and nutrient consumption. It can require up to 20% of the body's energy—more than any other organ—despite making up only 2% of the human body by weight.[14][15] If 90% of it were unnecessary, there would be a large survival advantage to humans with smaller, more efficient brains. If this were true, the process of natural selection would have eliminated the inefficient brains. It is also highly unlikely that a brain with so much redundant matter would have evolved in the first place.
4.Brain imaging (neuroimaging): Technologies such as positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) allow the activity of the living brain to be monitored. They reveal that even during sleep, all parts of the brain show some level of activity. Only in the case of serious damage does a brain have "silent" areas.
5.Localization of function: Rather than acting as a single mass, the brain has distinct regions for different kinds of information processing. Decades of research have gone into mapping functions onto areas of the brain, and no function-less areas have been found.
6.Microstructural analysis: In the single-unit recording technique, researchers insert a tiny electrode into the brain to monitor the activity of a single cell. If 90% of cells were unused, then this technique would have revealed that.
7.Neural disease: Brain cells that are not used have a tendency to degenerate. Hence if 90% of the brain were inactive, autopsy of adult brains would reveal large-scale degeneration.
Another argument is that, given the historical risk of death in childbirth associated with the large brain size (and therefore skull size) of humans,[16] there would be a strong selection pressure against such a large brain size if only 10% was actually in use.'

[Blaggard]

Nerding at a high level. Thanks for that VT.

Only the liver comes close to using the same energy as the brain, although I would say in some idiots, the quotient is reciprocal.

The average is 50% the usual is 0%.