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Any evolutionary biologist have theories on why our brains would be so underutilized? I wonder if there is a disadvantage to certain kinds of intelligence. Perhaps society works best when there is a variety of levels of intelligence, so there are larger numbers who are easier to lead and satisfied with less grandiose work. Maybe it has more to do with conserving energy or avoiding conflict?

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Or, at the very beginning of when evolution reached a "high enough" intelligence to make us use tools (to make tools), it ceased to be of significance compared to the rate of civilization evolution we experienced. We domesticated fire 400,000 years ago, I don't think human level intelligence hasn't evolved much since. (Nutrition, education, knowledge sharing increased much though!) So, our current brain architecture is "one" reached solution (not an optimal) in the possible states of evolved intelligences. Also, our brains are not under-utilized. We don't really know how everything works, and for startes our brains are very robust!

Well, our brains already use up 10 Watts, about 1/10 of our total resting energy budget, so I could certainly see that being a limiting factor.

So cranking up the caloric drain of the brain should burn more body fat, right?

I can already see the TV-Shop infomercials... :p

I can't find the specific article I was looking for, maybe it's more urban legend than fact, but supposedly chess players burn just as many calories per hour as athletes. In the top results on google you'll find comparisons of chess players to football players, and chess grand masters to olympic swimmer Michael Phelps. Somewhere in here is material for an infomercial sure... play our specially designed MMORPG and the calories will magically melt away!

Just curious, how do you measure something like that?

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