How many megabytes is your brain?
So, according to Hitachi, the brain has a 10TB storage capacity. But how did they arrive at this number?
There's been a lot of speculation about the brain's storage capacity. The most popular method of arriving at an answer is to estimate the number of synapses in the brain and extrapolate from there. This has led researchers to come up with numbers ranging anywhere from 3TB to 1000TB. Hitachi evidently was using this method.
But there's a second method (noted on the Of Two Minds blog). Psychologists have conducted experiments to measure how much information people are actually able to memorize. This produces much smaller numbers. They've concluded that it's only about two bits per second, or a few hundred megabytes averaged over an entire lifetime.
Of course, until scientists figure out a way to allow us to download our brains to computers, all these numbers are just useless trivia. And when that happens, we can all plug into the Matrix and live happily ever after.
Comments
Listed in chronological order. Newest comments at the end.
Listed in chronological order. Newest comments at the end.
"But there's a second method (noted on the Of Two Minds blog). Psychologists have conducted experiments to measure how much information people are actually able to memorize. This produces much smaller numbers. They've concluded that it's only about two bits per second, or a few hundred megabytes averaged over an entire lifetime."
But surely those experiments show only the bits/second, (in disk terms, writes/second) not the total capacity. And it appears from the text that they're counting _consciously_ memorized information, not all information retained. Furthermore, they would also not include storage space required for all the brain functions like sensory interpretation, autonomous functions, etc. (i.e, the software). On my laptop HDD, software accounts for over 2/3 of the space used.
So it's most likely that the two estimates are relatively accurate measures of two completely different things.
But surely those experiments show only the bits/second, (in disk terms, writes/second) not the total capacity. And it appears from the text that they're counting _consciously_ memorized information, not all information retained. Furthermore, they would also not include storage space required for all the brain functions like sensory interpretation, autonomous functions, etc. (i.e, the software). On my laptop HDD, software accounts for over 2/3 of the space used.
So it's most likely that the two estimates are relatively accurate measures of two completely different things.
Posted by Steven Knox in Maine on 07/21 at 01:38 PM
Well, personally, the Matrix might be kind of cool.
Posted by hulitoons on 07/21 at 07:10 PM
Neo from the forum will not be pleased by this Alex...
Posted by Oppiejoe in Haslett on 07/22 at 06:01 AM
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Category: Science, Psychology, Technology