How much memory does a brain have?

[skip0110]

You've got it the wrong way round - a memory cell is made out of some sort(s) of logic gate, by definition.

Have a look at Wikipedia - you can see a NAND gate made from four CMOS transistors.

A transistor is not a logic gate. You can make a memory cell out of transistors, and a logic gate out of transistors.

You can't make memory out of logic gates (barring a register, which is not really memory, but we were discussing RAM anayways) or logic gates out of memory.

See the Lego analogy.

Memory works by holding charge (in the NPN silicon barrier). Not by impulses.

Speaking of sidestepping, you've ignored the question I posed about what it is that feeds back in a feedback loop if there's no electrical impulses.

Impulse in the context of our discussion means a square wave on a wire. The feedback loop has current flow, but not in the shape of a square wave.

The problem with "counting states" in the brain is that no-one's entirely sure how the brain stores information at all. But the only way that doesn't need a binary signal is chemical - and that requires a binary input and a binary output for recall.

So, if you could identify what it is you need to count the states of, then you most certainly could do it. I addressed all of this earlier.

So since we don't know what states to count, you'd agree that it's pretty pointless to measure memory in bytes then?

 

[ÄŁPĨЙΣ]

Famine = 1 Terabyte.
Alpine = 971,000 Terabytes.

I'm a super human who has sooooo much memory that 2673 people died of shock. Nice guess GM!!

 

[Famine]

So since we don't know what states to count

But we do. The states are 1 and 0 (unless the brain stores information in a chemical manner, though it would require binary input to form and binary output to recall/read, so while the stored states may not be just 1 and 0, that'd be the only way they could be represented). We just aren't sure where to look to count the states.

It's a lot more complicated than you (and a few scientists) think. It isn't just thought... [Step 2] ... connection, memory.

you'd agree that it's pretty pointless to measure memory in bytes then?

You missed the point - and Professor Thomas K. Landauer would also disagree.

 

[skip0110]

But we do. The states are 1 and 0 (unless the brain stores information in a chemical manner, though it would require binary input to form and binary output to recall/read, so while the stored states may not be just 1 and 0, that'd be the only way they could be represented). We just aren't sure where to look to count the states.

It's a lot more complicated than you (and a few scientists) think. It isn't just thought... [Step 2] ... connection, memory.

The fact that we can definitely see the input and the output to the brain in binary form does not tell us anything about how much memory we have, or legitimize describing it in bytes or bits.

Let's take the example of a standard binary full-adder. I can add two 8 bit strings (16 bits input) and get a 9 bit output (including the carry bit). What does this say about how much memory is in the adder? None. The actual design of the adder tells us how much memory it has...it the case of the standard full adder, it is 1 bit (the carry bit). The full adder has two states: there could be a carry or there could not. Now I could design an (admittedly lousy) adder which stores two carry bits, and thus has two bits of memory (and four possible states). The input and the output is exactly the same.

Memory in the brain would be measured in the same way, if we could make any sense of it. It doesn't matter how many "bits" of data come in from the eyes/ears/taste/touch/etc. or how many are spit out when we recall a memory, and it doesn't matter that these turn out to be of a on/off nature. We need to somehow characterize how many possible states the brain can be in. There is
a) no logical reason why this would be a power of two, and
b) no logical reason that this would even be nearly constant, so
no sense in saying that the brain has X bytes of memory.

We could see X bytes of information go in (by looking at an optic nerve, say), and Y bytes of information go out a little later (looking at the nerves going to the voice box, say), and know completely nothing about how much memory is inside the brain.

 

[Famine]

no sense in saying that the brain has X bytes of memory.

Hence why I said you missed the point.

No-one's saying that. What I DID say was that work by Landauer et al. indicated that the human brain is capable of processing information at about 2 bits per second, so that, over an average lifespan, humans process somewhere in the order of the equivalent of 1 gigabyte.

To put it another way, I'm currently putting together some data on energy content. It turns out that an average chocolate bar contains about as much chemical energy as a McLaren F1 travelling at 240mph has kinetic energy. They're both energy, and can both be described in joules - or newtonmetres - but are quite different in their application. It doesn't make much sense to say that a chocolate bar and a McLaren F1 at 240mph each have 2 megajoules but, at it's basest, it's true. Just as the brain and a computer are both information storage devices, and both can have a capacity described as an order of binary information. They aren't strictly directly comparable, but nonetheless the comparison is a valid one.

Comparisons like this help people understand complex scientific issues better, while not necessarily being absolutely true.

 

[Omnis]

That's not memory, it's action and reaction, it's like a rubber band, when if you stretch one and you let it go it, returns back to it's original size. Action and reaction isn't memory. Air is constantly moving, it doesn't have memory, when water get's evaporated and forms a cloud, the cloud rises, when it cools down again and rains that's not memory causing that. When I take a dump, it's my brain controlling my inner-arse not my colon and anus controling it'self.

10. the ability of certain materials to return to an original shape after deformation.

Your bum has memory. I can't open my ass wide at will and have it stay that way, can you?

 

[skip0110]

Hence why I said you missed the point.

...

Comparisons like this help people understand complex scientific issues better, while not necessarily being absolutely true.

Fair enough. I did miss the point, I guess!

 

[Famine]

Fair enough. I did miss the point, I guess!

Well, your posts were certainly much more interesting than *cough* "some of the other posts" in this thread...

 

[Omnis]

Well, your posts were certainly much more interesting than *cough* "some of the other posts" in this thread...

Now, does the human brain have more memory than a Tempurpedic Mattress?

 

[samj_13]

Does anyone know what Famine's IQ and attention span is/are? It's insane. And I thought I was book smart

But this is quite an interesting thread. I've wondered a few times how much memory the brain has, but I suspect it's nearly infinate.

In my point of view, the brain and nervous system is like a PC. Once the PC sees something potentially important outside of itself, it makes a "cookie". If it then decides the cookie isn't important, it discards it. But if the cookie is actually important, the brain uses "MS-DOS" to go find the deleted cookie and recover it.

If the brain makes a critical decision, like for example a life or death decision, it get's a kick-start by shutting everything else down, and then deciding on the fly.

The brain seems like a giant server, IMO. A server that sends specific information to specific parts of the body, and monitors what those other parts are doing.