Re:What happens when...........

[Oldbushie]

I suppose it's possible to use all of your brain at once, you'd have to be doing quite a lot though...

[Jeysie]

More fun thoughts...

AFAIK, no child born without developing part of their brain has survived more than a short time... certainly any child that did survive for an extended time would be nowhere near "normal". Any child that developed without any brain at all would likely be stillborn.

Having "water on the brain" is a completely different phenomena... IIRC, it results when the body produces too much cerebrospinal fluid to be able to "get rid" of the excess. (At least, that's the gist of it, even if I futzed some of the details.) It's treatable, but can cause brain damage if left unchecked.

I suppose it's possible to use all of your brain at once, you'd have to be doing quite a lot though...

That's more of the extent of it, IMHO. Different parts of our brains are best dedicated to different tasks. Now, more than one part of the brain can (and usually is) involved in a single given "actual" task. But usually we don't do enough tasks at one time to need to use every region of our brain at a single given moment, no. We do collectively use every part of our brain at some point on a regular basis, though.

That's why people with brain damage of some kind exhibit vastly different types of "symptoms"... it depends on what task(s) the damaged parts of their brains usually do. I'd be willing to guess that recovering after brain injury involves your brain training itself to use parts of itself usually used for other stuff to cover the job(s) of the damaged parts. Or something like that.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[Oldbushie]

Yeah, I meant born with no brain at all, just some kind of liquidy stuff. There are some people who are still alive and have this condition, and are well into their teens at least. They might have a thin layer of brain cells on the outer edge but have mostly fluid in their skull. And a couple of them manage to be quite intelligent too.

[Jeysie]

Yeah, I meant born with no brain at all, just some kind of liquidy stuff. There are some people who are still alive and have this condition, and are well into their teens at least. They might have a thin layer of brain cells on the outer edge but have mostly fluid in their skull. And a couple of them manage to be quite intelligent too.

Ahh. To me, that sounds basically like what happens to "normal" people who suffer brain damage... their bodies train themselves to compensate for what's missing. Except that for these kids, it was actually a little "easier" since they never had any predetermined "pathways" to begin with. But just because someone can function without a given part of their brain doesn't necessarily mean that part is unimportant.

It's like somebody being born blind. Yes, such a person can train themselves to use their other senses to compensate for their lack of sight, so they can eventually operate almost the same as a sighted person. But wouldn't we agree that they'd be better off if they could see?

The human body is an amazing thing. On the one hand, it's a fascinating display of efficiency and specialization... each part of the body is designed to do a given thing, and the body works most easily when every part can do it's "trained" job effectively.

On the other hand, it's also very flexible. The human body has a remarkable capacity to compensate for damage or reduction in ability of some parts of the body. But it does put more pressure on those parts of the body doing "double duty".

It's like my office. Part of our system is a "triangle" of an accounts payable person, an accounts receivable person, and me as a file clerk. On days when we're all here, I sort paperwork and info going in and coming out, and they actually *do* stuff with the paperwork and info.

If one of us is out for the day, the other two can cover the other person's duties. We can even usually manage to do almost all of the person's daily duties in addition to our own. Doesn't mean we're all not a whole lot happier to have us all there to do one person's work, as opposed to one-and-a-half person's work.

Yay, more useless babbling from Yours Truly.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[copycat]

Yeah, I meant born with no brain at all, just some kind of liquidy stuff. There are some people who are still alive and have this condition, and are well into their teens at least. They might have a thin layer of brain cells on the outer edge but have mostly fluid in their skull. And a couple of them manage to be quite intelligent too.

Observe the words 'liquidy' and 'fluid' as opposed to 'watery' and 'water'.