MovieChat Forums > Limitless (2011) Discussion > Central premise = fatally flawed plot ho...

Central premise = fatally flawed plot hole

posted 13 years ago by dalinian
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The central premise of the film ‘Limitless’ (2011) and its source novel ‘The Dark Fields’ (2001) is fatally flawed, since it is predicated on an urban legend. When Vernon introduces Eddie Morra to the NZT48 drug MacGuffin, he perpetuates the old “We only use 10% of our brain” myth (though doubling it to 20%), and Eddie fails to challenge him. Since that myth is false, it’s also false that 30 seconds after taking a ‘miracle pill’ anybody could become hyper-intelligent and memory-perfect.

The old “We only use 10% of our brain” myth has been extensively debunked [1] by, for instance:

• Neuroscientist Barry Beyerstein in "Whence Cometh the Myth that We Only Use 10% of our Brains?", in Prof. Sergio Della Sala's ‘Mind Myths: Exploring Popular Assumptions About the Mind and Brain’, 1999
» http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mind-Myths-Exploring-Popular-Assumptions/dp/04 71983039

• Psychologist Benjamin Radford, Managing Editor of the ‘Skeptical Inquirer’, at Snopes.com, 2007
» http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percent.asp

• Professor of Human Cognitive Neuroscience Sergio Della Sala in ‘Tall Tales about the Mind & Brain’, Xmas lecture in Edinburgh, 2008
— 'We only use 10% of our brain' myth debunked from 23:00 to 41:30
» video, 57:07 – http://www.ed.ac.uk/news/all-news/dalyell-prize

• Mythbusters Grant Imahara, Kari Byron, and Tory Belleci, in ‘MythBusters’ Episode 151, 2010
» http://mythbustersresults.com/tablecloth-chaos

Even with the willing suspension of disbelief in primary physiological/psychological truths, the films still fails – because as many authentically intelligent reviewers and board posters have pointed out, the writers just weren’t up to the task of writing a convincing hyper-intelligent memory-perfect protagonist, let alone a likeable one.

The only level on which the film works is as an allegorical and satirical fable on the dreadful state of C21 American society – desperate for the 30 second quick fix solution in pill form, addicted to vulgar materialism and “I'm all right, Jack” narcissistic egoism, obsessed with recreational sex, and mired in dog-eat-dog casino capitalism where businessmen are morally equivalent to drug dealers, all ruled over by the plutocracy of Big Capital. I guess you’re getting dealt the kind of decadent films you deserve.

dalinian

[1] The 'We only use 10% of our brain' myth has been extensively debunked – for instance:

• 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.

• Evolution: The brain is enormously costly to the rest of the body, in terms of oxygen and nutrient consumption. It can require up to twenty percent of the body's energy – more than any other organ – despite making up only 2% of the human body by weight. 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. By the same token, it is also highly unlikely that a brain with so much redundant matter would have evolved in the first place.

• Brain imaging: 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Metabolic studies: Another scientific technique involves studying the take-up of radioactively labelled 2-deoxyglucose molecules by the brain. If 90 percent of the brain were inactive, then those inactive cells would show up as blank areas in a radiograph of the brain. Again, there is no such result.

• 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.

~ Neuroscientist Barry Beyerstein, quoted in ‘10% of brain myth’, Wikipedia
» http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10%25_of_brain_myth

[–] carpet_seller 11 years ago

I think the "we only use 10%" line is irrelevant and is not the central premise of the film.

The central premise of the film is that the drug very quickly makes people able to concentrate on the task at hand with perfect clarity and this increases or has the appearance of increasing brain power.

Whether we start at 10% or 20% or 90% brain usage before the pill is irrelevant because the pill exponentially increases whatever power we had before taking it.

Think of a car using petrol driving at it's top speed, it is using 100% of it's power. Now add NOS - Nitous Oxide and it increases speed it is still using 100% of it's power but it's performance is 120% of what it was before.

[–] hackster78 11 years ago

well, i totally accept what you said. but that 10% thing was from a character in a movie who wasn't so smart himself. I suppose the words were not necessarily the belief of the screen-play writer or directors.

[–] brokencd-855-445922 10 years ago

I don't think you know what a plot hole is. This is a fictional work, if the writer makes it true in his story, then it's true. That's not what a plot hole is.

Do you also question the validity of magic in Harry Potter? Posts like yours are so stupid. It's like you use the power of wikipedia and forums to try to impress us with your vast knowledge. Sad.

[–] richnieh 10 years ago

The 10% of brain use is miss-leading. It is similar to that we can only fully control about 25% of our muscle and the rest just work on its own.

90% (or 75% rest of our muscle) are serving their own purpose but there is a theory that is never proved that if we can control all of our brain i.e. disable all other function temporarily. Just like to fully control our internal organs muscles where there are myth that few people can do that.

Also these is a theory that with stronger brain control, there is a way to control our muscle that is not supposed to be controlled. Again those are theory.

In these kind of Si-fi movies, we really should not look into details too much. After all, it is just a theory like light speed travelling. If we should ban the theories used in movies, the si-fi movies will be dead boring. Or if you are already bored…too bad, you should just watch some love stories drama then.

[–] croat-hr 10 years ago

But, we actually do use X% of our brain AT THE TIME.
We use all the brain, that's thrue, but not all all the time. In different thinking processes, different parts of our brain is used.
Therefore we actually do use some psrts of the brain in the given time.
Plus that - we use acces like 0,00001% of our memory at the time, even though it's proven that everything that ever happened to us is written somewhere in our brain.

There are however already drugs that activate more or different parts of the brain than usual, for instance LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs, and that's why we hallucinate on these drugs. - It's just impossible for all that information to be processed logicaly, and our brain tries to make scence of all that infrormation, and makes thoughts and patterns, which aren't usual and normal.

So using more brain than usually wouldn't make us smarter - it would only makes us more confused and scared. The brain is just perfect the way it is now.

[–] jose-189-265901 10 years ago

Is this a science forum? Have you taken any special pill to act an idiot like this? A movie is a MOVIE, take as it is.

[–] f-society 10 years ago

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.

Umm.. Wrong. I'm not a scientist for the brain but I can still use common-sense and this explanation doesn't stack up. Consider the following statements:

1. Human beings have ability to do algebra.
2. Human beings who have never been taught algebra in their lives have ability to do algebra

The second statement is false because you need to be taught to do algebra before you can do algebra. Just because human beings have brain capacity to potentially do a algebra, doesn't mean they can.

Now replace algebra with "100% of the brain" and you get following statements:

1. Human beings have ability to use "100% of the brain".
2. Human beings who have never been taught to use "100% of the brain" in their lives have ability to "100% of the brain"

The second statement is false because you need to be taught to use "100% of the brain" before you can use "100% of the brain". Just because human beings have brain capacity to use potentially "100% of the brain", doesn't mean they can.

So for studies of brain damage, just because 90% of the brain is unused and available, doesn't mean human being know how to access it.

After all, the brain is like any other muscles; "If you don't use it, lose it."

This can be further confirmed by people with "paranormal" brain activities which is running on "ultra brainwave band" instead of the normal range most people do.

For example, there is one disabled lady in Myanmar who can "guess" the serial number of money contained in your wallet. So many people have gone and tested with her (including me) and nobody can explain how it is happening. They call her ET (unfortunate name but you'll see why in a min).

It is even in the news: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1559350/Asias-rich-and-power ful-turn-to-ET-for-advice.html

When ET rushed into the room, took up a pen in her crooked fist and began scrawling prophesies, she did not disappoint. First she wrote the number 89702795, stating that it was the serial number of a $100 bill in my wallet.
Anyone in Rangoon who can afford her rates of £35 for a 30-minute session has a wallet full of dollars, but when there proved to be a note with the number 89702750 it seemed like a good start with just two digits wrong. For her next trick she accurately named the place where I was born.

Sure people "worship" this sort of people as they believe she can tell the fortune. But I'm interested in what can be measured scientifically, such as her guessing of the serial numbers of money to all her visitors before she continue.

So as a summary, I wouldn't be sure if we are all using 100% of the brain ;)

--
Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.

[–] Enrique-8 10 years ago

DALINIAN...It is ONLY a movie. It is not based on FACT. Fiction is not FACT...by definition.

Now, go away. We don't care.

Enrique Sanchez