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I just finished watch Lucy a minute ago.

FYI, we used 100% of our brain. However, only 10% of our brain can be attributed to conscious thought and actions. The rest is used for automatic functions. You cannot re-purpose those parts of the brain, so we cannot expand our 10% further without a mutation or evolutionary change in brain structure, and no single mutation is ever going to dramatically increase the 10%. The movie “Lucy” is based on a common misconception popularized by “science journalism” which is nearly always inaccurate.

Unconscious is something of a misnomer. The unconscious part of the brain is also included in the 10% conscious. Automatic functions are stuff by heartbeat, breathing, digestion … these kinds of functions make up 90% and are not conscious a.k.a. unconscious.

Question: How about some people—we have seen on TV—that able to control their heartbeat when free diving into deep water? Do they have more control to “take over” the automatic control, even just a little bit?

Answer: They aren’t actually controlling their biology. They are interrupting it by introducing signals in the brain that interfere with normal functions. If you alter your voluntary respiration in just the right way, it will affect your automatic functions. Like how being depressed can affect your immune system.