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Ian Logan
Dr. Rand
UWRT 1102-010
1 April 2015
Inquiry Project

Who Will Win?

The room suddenly went dark. A little light attempted to illuminate the entire auditorium
from a little room behind the audience. Right before the audiences eyes could adjust to the dark,
numerous, lights of all colors suddenly lit up the entire room while moving in circular motions.
Out of nowhere, music began echoing throughout the entire room as the stage sprang to life once
more. As the commotion began dying down, every eye in the audience shifted to the host of the
game show.
Andddddd..were back! Ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the final episode of
Whos the Next Little Einstein? Im Eric Waldridge, your host, and we are down to the finale!
These last two contestants have outmanned, outgunned, and outmaneuvered their competition up
to this point. Dont forget that a slight alteration was made to tonights rules. Since it is the finals,
we allowed the last two participants to bring their school backpack with them filled with any
level textbook or paper. Hopefully they will take advantage of the help as this one is for all the
marbles!
You all remember how we got this far. We started with hundreds of kids from every town
and city across the country looking for the best and brightest of todays youth. They went head to

head against each other, seeing who was the most knowledgeable in the different areas of life. I
tell you what, its amazing what these kids know at such an early age. I am blown away every
single time by the amount of information they have in their little noggins. And now weve
eliminated all but the final two contestantsLittle Johnny and Mary Jane. Johnny, a short blondehaired boy of thirteen, is from Boring, Oregon. Fun fact, this city has a little more excitement in
it than the name implies. Hahaha. I am a little shocked to see Johnny in the finals, I must say. He
was not my first pick to still be here, but he definitely wasnt my last! Mary Jane, his opponent,
comes from the Big Apple and really set the standard. Her track record is practically flawless;
she easily beat all of her competition to claim her spot here in the finals. She will definitely be
hard to beat as she just blew us all away with her answer to, How can Congress and the Senate
improve the American government? Outstanding, I did not know a girl of her age knew the inner
workings of politics 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 finish with a clean sweep and claim the title? Lets find out! Johnny, your question is, is the
human brain limited?
Funny you should ask that, Mr. Eric. My English teacher assigned my class that very
question; and I just finished writing that paper a few days ago. I think I still have a copy of it
here in my backpack. Just give me one secondyep. Here it is. Ahem.
(Below is a copy of Johnnys paper.)

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 in life, but it also gives us new ideas, thoughts, and inventions. As we grow
up, we can wrap our minds around and understand more intricate and complicated concepts.
What other body part has this kind of functionality? None. As time continues to progress,
mankind has invented and created more complex machines thanks to our growing knowledge
and understanding of the way our world works. These concepts could not be understood without
the help of the brain. Our minds have imagined previously unheard of stories and numerous
people have fallen in love with the things we have brought out of the shadows and into existence
courtesy of our brain. However, will we ever reach the limit of what we can comprehend and
store in that organ between our ears? Will we ever reach a point where anything and everything
has already been thought of by another person? If there is some kind of mental limit imposed on
us, is there anything we can do to circumvent it?
A decent amount of Americans seem to think that humans only use ten percent of their
brain. If we want to understand more and increase our brain capacity, we would simply need to
tap into that unused ninety percent. That would be the easy answer; but that fallacy is not true.
However, that myth 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,
[W]e use virtually every part of the brain the brain is active almost all the time (Boyd).
This widely known fact is simply false.

However, the brain does technically have a limit. Even though the brain is made up of
small units, it is not infinite; there is a maximum amount of information which the brain can
hold. Our brain can pack in only so many neurons; our neurons can establish only so many
connections among themselves; and those connections can carry only so many electrical
impulses per second (Fox 43). Converting to modern storage terms, the brains memory
storage capacity...[is] something closer to around 2.5 petabytes (or a million gigabytes) (Reber).
However, despite having a limitation on the capacity of the brain, people will not come close to
utilizing all of their available storage. Other things will, in fact, limit our ability to potentially
come close to using all of that storage (Poldrack). These restraints include sleeping and aging.
Sleep actually cleans out the brain of unimportant memories. Since every single moment of
every single day does not need to be remembered, the brain highlights the important memories.
Also, sleep deprived people have smaller than average brains (Weller). University of Oxford
scientists found in a study that people suffering from sleep deprivation more often had cortical
shrinkage than people who got the appropriate number of hours (Weller). When people sleep,
they also reduce the number of hours they are awake, which reduces the number of memories
stored in their brain (Poldrack). In short, sleep recharges the brain and prepares it for the
upcoming day. On a similar note, aging also reduces the reaction of the brain. In fact, for every
15 years after age 24, cognitive speed dropped by about 15% (Park). As people get older, their
brains wear out and take more time to process their surroundings and make decisions (Park).
The more time spent processing means that it will not store as many memories. In short,
common, every day experiences actually hinder human intelligence. With other limiting factors,
the brain will not be able to reach its maximum capacity.

What about trying to alter the brain to go above and beyond that limit? Is there a way to
make a super brain? Scientists have actually done extensive research on this topic. They too
wonder whether or not they can expand the current possibilities of the human brain. For instance,

Thomas Hills from the University of Warwick and Dr. Ralph Hertwig from the University of
Basel looked into this particular subject. They concluded that people cannot have their cake and
eat it too when it comes to acquiring more brain functions. People with higher IQs, better
memories, or savant like tendencies have a greater chance of suffering from a disorder. In
essence, there is a give and take when it comes to higher brain function. One person cannot
simply possess all of the extraordinary brain functions currently known to man (University of
Warwick). If the brain were enlarged to hold more neurons, the processing speed would be
slowed. If more links were made between the neurons, the amount of energy consumed would be
too high. If neurons could be shrunk down, then more could be packed into the existing space.
However, smaller neurons tend to misbehave. There is always give and take when it comes to
possible enhancements of the brain (Fox 42). Although humans may be able to find a way to
enhance one characteristic of the brain, they would need to compromise and give up another
function in order to attain that result. In short, if we wanted to alter the makeup of the brain to
improve it, there would be some loss of functionality in at least one area (University of
Warwick).
Since there is a cap on what we can put into the brain, and there is no clear way to alter it
for the better, what about what we can get out of it? Is there a limit to the amount of original
ideas we can come up with? Will our creativity ever run out? As long as people continue to
produce offspring, humanitys creativity will not run dry. After all, children are a lot more
creative than adults. Since kids have not learned all of the rules of the world, they do not know
the possible from the impossible. Anything and everything can happen in their mind (Sloane).
With no restrictions, kids can think of whatever they want.

In the past couple of centuries, the amount of inventions humans have fabricated has
increased exponentially. From the creation of the engine to the microchip, humans have invented
many new gizmos that accomplish a wide range of tasks. Engines ease the task of travelling
while computers solve problems. Two hundred years ago, humanity would have never thought of
such intricacies.
Books have long since captured many individuals. People love sitting down and reading a
good story. Recently, the fantasy genre has grown immensely. People have invented superheroes,
galaxies, worlds, and peoples from their imagination. Since this genre does not have to follow
the rules applicable on earth, almost anything goes. With such a loose restriction, the possibilities
are endless as to what people can come up with and materialize either in a book or movie. Titles
such as Alice in Wonderland, The Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter have become extremely
popular and attract numerous readers. These particular titles have even been casted into movies
and gained more popularity. To put it briefly, if someone was a child and has a brain, they can
imagine something original and keep the creative cycle going. Since it does not matter what the
idea is and anything goes, there can never be a limit as to what can come out of a human brain.
After looking at both what can go into a brain and what comes out of it, I would say there
are some thresholds we cannot cross, but not everything is limited. Just because there may be a
mental cap on the amount of intelligence one person can attain does not mean that is the end of
the road. As the years go on, people continue to write books and think of new stories and
characters. As the list of good books continues to lengthen, so does humanitys creativity. In
short, the question, is the human brain limited? does not have a definitive yes or no
answer. Rather, the question must be broken down into parts in order to accurately give the most

complete answer. If you asked me, is the brain limited or limitless? I would answer yesit is
both limited and limitless.
(End of Johnnys paper.)

Wow. Folks, I think I just heard a masterpiece. After reading his work, I think Little
Johnny has an excellent chance of winning this competition. After all, this is Whos the Next
Little Einstein? And I am Eric Waldridge. Why would I expect anything less than the greatest
from our final two contestants? I am blown away that a kid that young was able to orchestrate the
words on the page in that manner. I dont know why I doubted Johnnys ability, but my, oh my, I
was gravely mistaken! Judges, I now turn the decision over to you. What will you decide? Who
will win?

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.
Weller, Chris. Sleep Deprivation Kills Brains Cells, Shrinks Organ In Size: Rest Up And Stay
Smart. IBT Media Inc. 1 Oct. 2014. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.
Park, Alice. Our Brains Begin to Slow Down at Age 24. Time Magazine. 15 Apr. 2014. Web.
31 Mar. 2015.
Poldrack, Russell. How much can a person learn in a lifetime?. Society for Neuroscience. 25
Jul. 2012. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.
Reber, Paul. What Is the Memory Capacity of the Human Brain?. Scientific American, a
Division of Nature America, Inc. 1 Apr. 2010. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.