How much memory does a brain have?

[Robin]

All old memories remain but just get compressed like a Zip file and then to remember something you have to think... whereas recient things are right at hand.... the brain does indeed remember everything even if you dont, if you get what im saying...... when you smell something or hear something it can suddenly bring back a memory from ages ago. When you dream your world and the people around you are vividly created eventhough when your awake you cant describe exactly what they look like.

Im sure there is a finite amount the brain can store, its just probably alot more than we can live to fill..... when we get old our architecture is what lets our brain down and thats why it fails with the rest of our body......

Computer technology was built from man thus created in our image..... just like planes where designed from how birds fly..... its an expression of how we see the rest of the world and therefore technology is a reflection of us and our brain.

 

[Touring Mars]

the brain does indeed remember everything even if you dont, if you get what im saying......

Anyone who has ever drunk a whole bottle of vodka in one sitting can tell you that this is simply not true. And even if it were true, it would be very difficult if not impossible to prove.

 

[Robin]

Anyone who has ever drunk a whole bottle of vodka in one sitting can tell you that this is simply not true. And even if it were true, it would be very difficult if not impossible to prove.

I meant when your brain isnt full of poison!!!!! Ofcourse if you alter your mind it wont remember stuff!

 

[ßen]

This is a very interesting topic of debate. The facts being mentioned are very interesting indeed. 576 Megapixels?! Wow.

 

[Gen.]

My brain needs winzip.

 

[KieranMurphy]

If I'm reading that right, that just means that that is how much is used over your life. When applied to the theory that only 10% of your brain is used, it pegs it at 10 Gigs.

The idea that humans only use 10% of their brains is an urban myth.

I'm also very wary of trying to compare human memory of pictures and events to the way computers store photos and video. Does your brain actually store things in pixelated format and in frames per second? When I recall an event in my head, I don't have HD-DVD 25 frames per second 24-bit color recollection of it in high definition Dolby surround sound. If it's something I remember well, all I really know is what happened. I think my brain just makes up a lot of the video and picture by filling in the gaps as I'm recalling it. If I'm remembering a wedding, I know what happened and who was there, so I reconstruct a version of what happened, based on what I already know people look like and sound like and other things. I'd say our memory of events is more like one of those crime reconstructions you see on TV, basically right in most of the details, but not a reliable replica of the real thing.

I also don't think it's remotely meaningful to put a figure like 10Ghz on it's "processing power". When people talk about the Ghz of a CPU, they're just referring to it's rate of operation. Different CPUs with the same clockspeed can be wildly more or less efficent at different things, despite both being 2Ghz or whatever (e.g. think of a dual-core versus a single-core chip or a 64-bit vs. a 16-bit chip, operating at the same Mhz). And does the brain have a clock signal anyway in order to make the question meaningful in any way?

edit: Besides, the human brain is far superior to a typical computer at certain things like pattern recognition (think of the difficulties involved in trying to get a computer to read handwriting or recognise faces) but useless at certain tasks that a cheap computer can do millions of times faster (all sorts of number crunching).

The human brain is an astounding thing and there's a long way to go before it's properly understood, but I think there's an awful lot of crap flying around about it's abilities.


KM.

 

[TopHat]

What may I ask, is a Flop?

 

[DuckRacer]

What may I ask, is a Flop?

Wikipedia is your friend.

 

[KieranMurphy]

What may I ask, is a Flop?

Floating point operation per second. It's a measurement of a type of mathematical operation that CPUs carry out. The rate at which computers can carry out FLOPs - megaflops, gigaflops, etc. is a rough indication of how effectively fast they are.

But does a human brain perfrom floating point operations in a comparable way to a computer? Find one of those formulae for calculating the digits of pi, write a computer program to do it on your PC, and get a pen and paper and have a go yourself (or try doing it in your head). Your PC will have calculated thousands of digits by the time you've figured out a couple. A cheap CPU has the human brain beat hands down when it comes to FLOPS.


KM.

 

[Metar]

All of this raises interesting questions, such as how much RAM does your brain have? Do you crash like Windows when you try to do multiple tasks? How do you bring up the Task Manager? CTRL+ALT+SLAP?

Nope, it's SSTR+SHUT+UP. It works like in Windows 2000, it freezes all the work done on the brain at that moment....

I reckon I haven't even got enough RAM to think about something AND sleep... I always end up thinking about exciting things until midnight.
But I reckon multi-tasking is a skill that I do possess. I can manage cooking something while shouting at my sister, and trying to keep watch of the coffee while also browsing the net. It's simple - one by one.

 

[Lee]

But I reckon multi-tasking is a skill that I do possess. I can manage cooking something while shouting at my sister, and trying to keep watch of the coffee while also browsing the net. It's simple - one by one.

Are you a woman?

Well if there's a test to see how smart your brain is, is it possible to make a test to find out your brains capacity? I would have thought it would be extremely similar as to be smart you need the capacity to store all the information..

 

[Metar]

Are you a woman?

Well if there's a test to see how smart your brain is, is it possible to make a test to find out your brains capacity? I would have thought it would be extremely similar as to be smart you need the capacity to store all the information..

No, I'm a hopeless case of a gone-mad brother.

And about such a test... I don't consider IQ tests as reliable testers. There's a difference between people, and testing one's mental capabilities is not done through tests...

 

[Famine]

What may I ask, is a Flop?

The "joke" you made in post 6 was a pretty big Flop.

 

[ßen]

The "joke" you made in post 6 was a pretty big Flop.

It was, wasn't it. Probably because it was rather stupid, and unnecessary. Liking the usage of 'flop' too,

 

[Alex.]

for me it´d be about nil

 

[skip0110]

Since the brain does not store binary data (or if it does, it can store probably at most 7-14 bits in short term memory, unless you are a savant) I would say the answer is zero bytes.

 

[Famine]

Since the brain does not store binary data (or if it does, it can store probably at most 7-14 bits in short term memory, unless you are a savant) I would say the answer is zero bytes.

Are you sure? Yes/no.

 

[skip0110]

Are you sure? Yes/no.

Yes. What was the question again? (please explain in binary for my easy comprehension)

Measuring human memory in bytes is like measuring the speed of a car in Mhz. (Maybe) it can be done, but the result is not going to be very useful.

 

[fideles1986]

the brain does indeed remember everything even if you dont, if you get what im saying......

Anyone who has ever drunk a whole bottle of vodka in one sitting can tell you that this is simply not true. And even if it were true, it would be very difficult if not impossible to prove.

i think ur mind still remembers even if one is wasted. One night a friend and myself drove home (totally drunk) and when we woke up the next morning, we didn't even know how we got there. In a weeks time he said he had flash backs of when we were driving home, he said he remembered us playin FIFA 2004 before passing out, and as he told this my cousin, who lives with us, confirmed that we did do that Í also heard a case of a girl that got rapped while she was out and later on found out who it was through her flashbacks.

 

[Famine]

Yes. What was the question again? (please explain in binary for my easy comprehension)

Measuring human memory in bytes is like measuring the speed of a car in Mhz. (Maybe) it can be done, but the result is not going to be very useful.

It was a binary gag - anyone familiar with Tron would probably have got it. Never mind.

So then... how DO humans store information if not in the manner of ones and zeroes (corresponding to nerve impulses or no nerve impulses)?

 

[skip0110]

So then... how DO humans store information if not in the manner of ones and zeroes (corresponding to nerve impulses or no nerve impulses)?

Storage by impulses? You'll have to explain to me how that works...

I (along with a few other scientists) think that it's neural connections that are linked to memory. So memory is determined by the topology of the neural network...a new memory will correspond to some new connections. The impulses are only involved in the recall process.

 

[Famine]

Storage by impulses? You'll have to explain to me how that works...

I (along with a few other scientists) think that it's neural connections that are linked to memory. So memory is determined by the topology of the neural network...a new memory will correspond to some new connections. The impulses are only involved in the recall process.

Important sentence underlined.

You can have all the neural connections in the world but without any impulses there's no memory. The binary nature of neural communication - impulse or none - is absolutely vital for our intelligence and our memory.

Incidentally, have you looked inside a computer chip recently? Tons of connections in there - which are all completely useless without the electricity passing down them. Bung a whole load of extra connections in - by plugging in a DDRAM module - and you make new memory...


So, both computer and brain have a memory size directly related to the number of connections (in our case neurons, in their case logic gates) AND recall this information via a binary code of electrical impulses. The only key difference we've established is that we make our own new connections (and we don't turn back on again once we're turned off).


Would you (and your few scientists) now like to explain to the good folk how computers and brains differ in how they store information? Please describe how the knowledge of the smell of a sunflower is stored in the topology of the neural network. How does the information get in there to form new connections, and how does it stay in there?

 

[Dave A]

With regards to the impulses, are they like an on or off thing or just two stages of active impulse to represnt the 0's and 1's of bianry code, or do they operate at different waves or frequencies?

I have read that it is possible to hook yourself upto a computer and for the computer to record your brain implses in binary.

 

[Famine]

With regards to the impulses, are they like an on or off thing or just two stages of active impulse to represnt the 0's and 1's of bianry code, or do they operate at different waves or frequencies?

Yes and no.

Speed of an impulse can vary - though it's dependant on biological variables, so that for a given nerve the speed will be constant with some variation for external temperature.

Frequency of impulses can vary too - high frequency is a strong response, low frequency is a gentler response - though I'm not sure about the frequency of an individual impulse (I'd guess from what I say above and below, it's constant for any given nerve).

But the potential of a nerve impulse is always the same, anywhere in the body - 40mV.


Nerves have an "all-or-nothing" response. If the sum of the inputs to them is above a threshold level, they'll fire off an output, and they'll keep doing that until the inputs drop below the threshold, when they'll stop. In this way, they can very much be regarded as binary (on or off, nowhere in-between) - and indeed as logic gates, in that their output is dependant on the relation of their inputs.

 

[KieranMurphy]

Incidentally, have you looked inside a computer chip recently? Tons of connections in there - which are all completely useless without the electricity passing down them. Bung a whole load of extra connections in - by plugging in a DDRAM module - and you make new memory...

Erm, bunging in an extra RAM module makes extra memory, but doesn't increase the amount of "connections" in a CPU. It simply increases the available RAM whilst leaving the memory bandwidth the same and without changing any of the connections on the CPU die.

note: this may not be stricly true if the extra memory stick gives you dual-channel RAM, thus giving you 128-bit memory access which is better than 64-bit mem access.


KM.

 

[Famine]

Erm, bunging in an extra RAM module makes extra memory, but doesn't increase the amount of "connections" in a CPU.

Quite - but increasing your brain's memory doesn't necessarily affect your brain's processing ability either. We're just talking memory - and putting a memory module in increases the amount of memory in almost exactly the same way that increasing your brain's memory does (with the subtle distinction that you don't gain any more brain cells, just the connections between them, whereas the memory module has a load more logic gates AND connections between them AND connections to the computer (by the 184-pins in the DIMM slot)

 

[skip0110]

Incidentally, have you looked inside a computer chip recently? Tons of connections in there - which are all completely useless without the electricity passing down them. Bung a whole load of extra connections in - by plugging in a DDRAM module - and you make new memory...

So, both computer and brain have a memory size directly related to the number of connections (in our case neurons, in their case logic gates) AND recall this information via a binary code of electrical impulses. The only key difference we've established is that we make our own new connections (and we don't turn back on again once we're turned off).

1) A Pentium chip has millions of gates. But no memory. Computer memory is not related to the number of logic gates.

2) Your example of DDRAM is misleading (not to mention that the memory is not in the connections in there either, it is in accumulated charge). I can store computer data on a tape drive...no impulses involved!

Anyways, how a computer physically stores data has nothing to do with bytes. Bytes are a measure of binary data. And although you can represent network topology in binary format, that does not mean it is the best way to measure memory stored like that (nor is it uniform...different networks can equate to a different number of bytes depending on how you represent them).

The science shows that the creation of memories results in additional neural connections. Thats all I know of it.

 

[KieranMurphy]

Okay, fair enough. I had a suspicion I'd misinterpreted you somewhat.

Your point is well taken. I just thought I could be smart and prove you wrong about something!


KM.

 

[amp88]

1) A Pentium chip has millions of gates. But no memory. Computer memory is not related to the number of logic gates.

Incorrect. Pentium chips have onboard memory...the cache. I believe you were also incorrect earlier when you said most people could remember 7 to 14 bits in short term memory. I think you meant 7 to 14 bytes, as one digit (or one character) is equivalent to 1 byte in the ASCII standard.

 

[Thiele]

peta?
exa?

like this:

1000 bytes = 1 kilobyte
1000 kilobytes = 1 megabyte
1000 megabytes = 1 gigabyte
1000 gigabytes = 1 terabyte
1000 terabytes = 1 petabyte
1000 petabytes = 1 exabyte

so 1 exa byte = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes