What Is the Memory Capacity of the Human Brain?
In the age of information technology, we are used to
the fact that any information should occupy a certain amount of memory in
storage. And since memories are information, then sooner or later they must
fill the amount of memory in a person’s head. But the human brain is not a hard
drive where you can write information in free blocks.
Source:
https://revth.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/battle-for-the-mind.jpg
Neurons
communication
The process of "recording" information in
the brain occurs through the emergence of connections between neurons and the
creation of neural networks. Each time, recalling a past event, we activate the
neural connections associated with it. We can say that having a finite number
of neurons (according to researches it is about 100 billion cell nuclei) a
finite number of connections can be created inside the brain. This, in turn,
might mean that human memory is not limitless. However, each neuron can be
simultaneously involved in a huge number of connections, which over time become
more and more complicated.
It is believed that one neuron can participate in a
maximum of 1000 connections. So in our brains, a truly huge amount of
information can be stored and not a single person will be able to completely
exhaust all possible neural connections during his lifetime.
Source:
https://threekeyyears.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/ch1-fg2-communication-between-neurons.jpg
Human
brain capacity
There are approximately 2 quadrillion bytes in your
brain. If you imagine that your brain is a video camera that was turned on for
round-the-clock recording in good HD quality, then there will be enough space
for 300 years. That really impressive statistics in my opinion!
Our brain is a powerful machine made from slower processors. Each neuron has a “clock frequency” on the order of kilohertz, which is a million times slower than gigahertz. That explains why we used to think that electronic devices works "faster". The brain is surprisingly energy efficient and runs on 20 watts. Even if you do nothing, your brain will work and solve problems all the time.
Our brain is a powerful machine made from slower processors. Each neuron has a “clock frequency” on the order of kilohertz, which is a million times slower than gigahertz. That explains why we used to think that electronic devices works "faster". The brain is surprisingly energy efficient and runs on 20 watts. Even if you do nothing, your brain will work and solve problems all the time.
Source:
https://miro.medium.com/max/3840/1*IB9pRhX6gEHd-GNYvKBsag.jpeg
“My mind
is blowing up”
Sometimes people say "My brain is
overloaded" but they just do not know how to properly use it. And
actually, We can understand them, for example, imagine your phone itself, on
which there are a huge amount of files, songs, photos, etc. It's not easy to
find the one you need if there is no proper navigation system.
Source:
https://pics.me.me/the-human-brain-has-an-estimated-storage-capacity-of-256-59013640.png
Only for
use
Most scientists believe that a human brain is a tool
for using information, but not a place to store it. As this is just a hunch,
they cannot yet give a definite answer to the question of where the information
is stored.
Thus, as a human being, we can consider that the Limit
is in the life span, and not in Memory.
Thank you!
2.Compared to
previous generations, we know more information, but why do we act less(More knowledge, less usage)? If you are not agree Why?
References:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-memory-capacity
https://blog.wranx.com/is-there-a-limit-to-the-human-minds-capacity
Comments
Maybe not on a everyday basis because sometimes you need a time off for your brain but yes - i try to learn knew, interesting things.
2. Compared to previous generations, we know more information, but why do we act less(More knowledge, less usage)? If you are not agree Why?
I wouldn't say so. Nowadays there is plenty of innovative projects that people are working on.
2. I don't fully agree with you. You are right that there are no revolutions in industries but I think it is so because our generation is creating more complex and sophisticated things. Previous generations wouldn't consider cars, computers and other innovations which we have now. And to use them, of course, we need more knowledge than they had.
2. The inventions of the current age are not so revolutionary as they used to be in the past. At least we don’t hear about them, because indeed – it is possible that people got more ignorant as their life became more comfortable. Certainly, there are people who are able to use the unlimited amount of available knowledge to do extra ordinary things. I think that it just happens “behind closed doors”. There is a popular example: the comparison of Greta Thunberg who did nothing but talking and is extremely popular and a man who invented a device to clean the oceans from plastic, whose name I don’t even remember. Such information is not easy to sell to the majority of people.
2. The answer to this question is related to my previous answer. I think knowing so much has led to a lack of curiosity. People are no interested anymore in cheking or demonstrating how things work. And lot of information today is not good or useful. That makes even more difficult acting acordly.
2. Maybe you have right and it might be because we live in a capitalistic world. Inventions generally require a lot of funding and it brings profits in longer perspective or going further, the gainings are not certain. Also it really difficult to invent new things over and over in a relatively short period of time.
Yes, some of them are actually valuable in private life or work. Though nowadays we tend to gather hundred of thousands of useless information because of our phones and internet. Many facts are not that meaningful to us but still we read, listen to them.
2.Compared to previous generations, we know more information, but why do we act less(More knowledge, less usage)? If you are not agree Why?
By knowing to much and having answer to most questions under our fingertips just made people lazy and less curious of the world. You want to see a a beautiful person, landscape or art? You simple type, there is no need for imagination, long travels or even communication with other to "see" something.
2. Today we have more information but it's harder to find those that are true and correct and so using them gets also harder.
2. I think it could be related to information overload. Nowadays, we are almost "attacked" with information from every side, we deal with it at every turn. So it's difficult to use all this information, we're not able to completely cut off from them and choose only those that interest us and which we will need. This is also certainly caused by our lifestyle, we are in a constant hurry, we are exposed to high stress, health problems, low physical activity, and all of those automatically affect our psyche and our ability to remember certain things.
2. As I said in answer to previous question, sometimes it's just good to learn something for no certain reason. Just to train your brain or to have fun during reading about something new. I think that the Internet and common access to information made it possible. As people didn't have such possibility in the past, they just learned things that were necessary.
2. Nowadays we have everything at our fingertips and it can lead to lack of curiosity. We can google some information at any time when we need it, read and forget because we don't need it no more.
2. I partly agree with your thesis. We gather more information but this is theoretical information. In my opinion, older generations have much more greater practical experiences.
I suspect that this is due to the way of gathering information. Nowadays, we can find information about anything during 20 seconds. Learning by heart, conducting experiments – all this is pointless, because we can find out results on internet. Getting information doesn't require any effort. In the past, to find some information, you had to read books, conduct an experiments or write letter to proffesors. In my opinion, thanks that older generations are able to act better.
In my opinion I gather a lot of information every day, but I'm not sure that they are very useful. We are surrounded with many not important and stupid information from television, internet and other media. For this reason, we do not remember wise and useful information, they just miss us.
2.Compared to previous generations, we know more information, but why do we act less(More knowledge, less usage)? If you are not agree Why
The problem is that the source of our information is different than source of previous generation.
We collect knowledge from internet where the data is not always confirmed and true. Nowadays people forgot that they should search for information and knowledge in books, not in media.
2. We are overwhelmed with information. We see billboards, listen to the radio, browse the internet, talk and read. It is often difficult to focus and remember information. So, we are not always able to catch relevant information, we only remember some senseless information or do not register it at all or forget about something important.
2. Who are these “we”? Both the percentage of scientists in a society and the number of populations have grown so maybe regular people do not use their knowledge they were bombarded with previously too much but they don’t need to and they know it - the comfort of life has significantly increased, the majority can now just sit and consume. The great minds, in turn, are being encouraged and sponsored to act and make the lives of others better.
2/I'm not agree from this point. By this question I meant that most of youngsters nowadays are less interested to some inventions cuz they are content with what we have today. Beside that there is huge amount of information they simply don't use it properly.
Well, I would say that we've created those cars computers and etc based on previous generations experience, mistakes and their curiosity their passion to discover. But I agree that nowadays people tend to improve things and make it even more complex.
2. It seems to me that this is due to the development of an intelligent technologist who performs many activities for us.
Yes I think so, even if it is not useful, it will disappear from my brain soon, also in your presentation, it shows there are approximately 2 quadrillion bytes in our brain, anyway I had watched a Hong Kong documentary it showed that Hugo de Garis who was known as the Father of the Artificial Brain, he thought that there were only around 750MB useful for memory in our brain, the whole others were for processing the data, and the way for human to save data in brain was not like in computer, and the data was easy to lost in brain. So it doesn't matter for me whether the information will be useful or not.
2.Compared to previous generations, we know more information, but why do we act less(More knowledge, less usage)? If you are not agree Why?
First of all, I don't think we act less, there are still lots of people and scientists study more and more everyday and apply what they have learned, but of course this is the behavior of the minority of people, anyway we can not generalize all of us this way. And the reason for the majority of people acting less might be caused by social formation, most of them live to survive, they don't have extra time for study and research.
2. In my opinion it depends on a subject. On the one hand we have AI and technology, which are making our lives easier in many ways so we don't have to worry about and in the end we can be seen as more lazy or less practical, but on the other we have more time to be more creative and use our brain in different ways,
---2.Compared to previous generations, we know more information, but why do we act less(More knowledge, less usage)? If you are not agree Why?---
I wouldn't agree with that statement at all, and i believe that this is 100% false. Medieval british worker was exposed to as much information in a year as todays teenager in 5 minutes, so our brains evolved to sift it with maximal efficiency. That's the reason why everyone is so much more intelligent than previous generations, and that knowledge allows us to act smarter, so it may seem that people nowadays act less but in reality we act smart.
Since we are now at the training stage, and almost every day we are dealing with classes and lessons, we can say yes. But the average person on our planet does not collect it every day, since most of the things people do unconsciously. And a large percentage of the world's population already does many operations and actions on an automatic level. But this process can be configured for each of us, and operate on the information field around, try to remember something useful or read something for the benefit of the mind.
2.Compared to previous generations, we know more information, but why do we act less(More knowledge, less usage)? If you are not agree Why?
Indeed it is, we have great potential and the information field is much larger in the 21st century than in the last century. And computers and smartphones that are everyday for us will make our brain degrade in terms of memory processes. For example, now people don’t need to remember addresses, phone numbers, street names, build associations with locations in their heads, there is no need to remember a large number of formulas and facts, algorithms and recipes. A modern person has the confidence that he can get a smartphone out of his pocket and at any moment see all that he needs. Accordingly, many useful things are not stored in the memory, so people are not able to put them into practice. The most interesting thing is that there will never be a reverse process. Humanity will now never give up all these conveniences of modern technology.
2. Yes, I think that new generations think less, but at the same time they know more than previous ones. This is related to easier access to knowledge, for example, via the internet on your mobile.
2. Our generation in comparision to previous generations have access to enourmous amount of not only infomation but also misinformation. It's overwhelming and it can make us confused on which subject and how act.
2. Our population is overloaded with information, todays biggest problem is not getting information but finding useful one. Right now we live in "information dumpster" which is full of useless data and information. Thankfully, if we know how to find information its not a problem, we have multiple ways to do so and educate ourself.
2. I believe, modern humans don't know how to rest effectively and properly. We overload our brain with unnecessary data every day. When do we want to chill out what we usually do? Right, turn on some video, podcast, TV show. Which is also a stream of information for our brains. Usually, it's useless information.
2. I think that we are over flooded with information. Practically we have unlimited sources of knowledge, which are the Internet, television, radio, etc. So we end up with more information getting to our heads, but in fact we know less. I think that most information that we receive is useless.
2. I think this statement is completely wrong. You can't just compare two different generations like that. Life in some places changed entirely so they use their knowledge, skills and information in different ways than the older generation and that's alright.
2. I do not think that we act any less than previous generations. There is no need to in some cases once we have information about that. This may seem that we act less because we have simplier access to the information with modern technology.
I don’t think so. Every day we are practically bombarded with so many information (and most of them are junk info) that we cannot distinguish and keep only useful information, and we do not know which information may be useful to us.
2.Compared to previous generations, we know more information, but why do we act less (More knowledge, less usage)? If you are not agreeing Why?
Do we really act less, or maybe previous generations were more impressed by what they did then we are right now.
Of course. You can't live a day without receiving relevant information. I mean everything about ourselves or the world outside.
2.Compared to previous generations, we know more information, but why do we act less(More knowledge, less usage)? If you are not agree Why?
I don't think we can generalize it. Yes, we remember less information than people used to do now because the devices do it for us. However, we remember many others, it all depends on our lifestyle.
Comparing to our previous generations we know more and act less. I think I won’t agree with this statement. The sure thing it that we know more because we as humans develop something new everyday and we are smarter than a day before, but I don’t agree that we act less. I think that humanity at least try to get conclusions from this knowledge and use it to our advantage.
2) Yes, we have easier access to knowledge due to the internet, although those are often valueless information so yeah, in fact we know less. I think education level in for example general science was better than nowadays or maybe just our motivation and attitude to education has changed and we're too materialistic.
2. The fact that we know more than previous generations, influenced in our "motivation" to explore and invent new things. I think that's one of the most important factor
2. Today, we have access to much more information much faster than previous generations had. I think the big problem is quality of information we collide with every day, usually they are tailored to arouse in us very specific feelings without paying much attention to the facts on which they are based.
2. I think we just use our knowledge and available information much more efficient due to the huge improvement of technology. For instance we don't have to remember many things, we just need to know how and where to get them from.
2. In my opinion it is because of infoglut we meet daily. Gathering a lot of new information everyday can be the reason for forgetting information from the previous day, so in theory we know more information but in effect we are not able to use them and as a result we act less.
2. I don't agree with this opinion. Now science is developing much better and faster than in the last generation. For example, astronomy. In the last generation, people could not even imagine flying to the other end of the Solar system, about the new and complex satellites and probes that allow it to do this. And what about new discoveries? They didn't just happen. We used our knowledge for this. I think people who want to achieve something, discover or learn something new, use all the information to do so.
2. I don't agree with your theory. Today, man strives for our activities to be replaced by machines. We operate less, but we know and invent more. Thanks to technological progress such as the Internet and ubiquitous globalization, we pass on information faster and grow faster.
2. I think that due to automation a lot of the information is processed by the computers and people actually don't think that much about the simplest things as they used to.
Gather - yes. Useful - em.. not exactly.
On the one hand, any information can be useful for the brain in terms of forming new neural connections. On the other hand, it seems to me that there is an excess of these connections with unnecessary information, which can eventually slow down the speed of decision making in really important things.
Another important point is that knowledge must be supported by experience of its use in life, otherwise it is almost useless.
2.Compared to previous generations, we know more information, but why do we act less(More knowledge, less usage)? If you are not agree Why?
People are lazy. Many of the things that could be opened are already open. I think the main engine of progress was discomfort, the desire to improve something. And now most people are in comfortable conditions, there is nothing to improve, there is no incentive to do anything. Except that to absorb knowledge is just for yourself to show off a little bit in front of your friends.
Actually from time to time I catch myself on remembering useless staff and not remembering something crucial. Mostly it occurs to me when I meet up with my friend who has similar problems and we reminisce something.
2.Compared to previous generations, we know more information, but why do we act less(More knowledge, less usage)? If you are not agree Why?
I think that it’s the way of life we live right now, it is more paced, and even though we gather more information we don’t really have time to process it carefully.
It's hard to say. I think it is 50-50. Obviously I read and watch a lot of things for entertainment but I also learn a lot of useful things everyday at my work or at university.
2.Compared to previous generations, we know more information, but why do we act less(More knowledge, less usage)? If you are not agree Why?
I think that nowadays it is harder to invent something. Many things were throughly researched so it is hard to find out something new. Still I think that nowadays we have many inventions and I wouldn't say there is stagnation in our development.
Right, I think people are used to their comfort zone and this explains many things.
Yes I like your example, nowadays "talking about some sensation is popular" rather then real achievements
2. The development of technology means that we don't have to do the same number of steps to get the same result. We know more and we know how to acquire knowledge quickly (e.g. the Internet), but this doesn't mean that we do less. Automation and computerization have made us do less.
2. I could not more agree with the statement above. Millennials, to which I consider myself belonging, tend to be overloaded with information because of the technological revolution that we happened to all be witnesses of. Everyone that I know is having an smartphone, tablet, and computer. Everyone has at least one social media platform and some are even subscribing various YouTube channels or online magazines. There is too much, too fast. One can get easily bogged down by the amount of resources possible. That is why my generation has started to take any sort of knowledge or information database for granted. Once we forget, we can easily come back to the information later. All we need to do is to google it and click the search button. This is why it is broadly observed among people who are less than 30 years old to fall into the procrastination routine. We think, that we should not hurry with actions as we still have resources, time, or abilities to come to any undertakings some other time. This other time is usually extended to never. In my opinion, all the IT achievement hands down simplified our lives to build a brighter future for the human kind, but it has also made us lazy and disinterested, which is a side-effect of this groundbreaking revolution of Silicon Valley technology.
I agree with your point of view people simply became lazy and less curious.
1. I think it cant be possible. Every day I learn something new, because all days i spend in diffrent ways, but not all of information which I get are usefull. Mostly are, but I think not every day.
2. I agree with this statement. These days we are accustomed to have access to all the informations by phones. Previous generations doesnt have this privilege. They had to learn everything and remember about it. Now we can always check it in the Internet. Moreover I think this generation have always "time", so they are not hurry to done everything that fast what previous generation.
Probably yes, but who knows that. I try to gather and keep useful information while learning new things for example.
Let's not forget that every day we are exposed to useless information - which unfortunately (less often or more often) our brain remembers.
2.Compared to previous generations, we know more information, but why do we act less(More knowledge, less usage)? If you are not agree Why?
I completely disagree with your thesis. We have more knowledge, which can help to solve a really complex problems.
Even young people join projects in various areas of life. What are you expecting? Would you like everyone to be an inventor? :)
And I agree we learn more theoretical info rather then practical.
I think that I gather and keep useful information in your brain every day. I think I can already classify important information and keep it longer, and never mind, I just "delete" it from memory.
Partially I agree, there are minority of people that doing some scientific breakthroughs.
I believe that every single information is important. It defines us, because we base our activities and decisions on everydays information which we provide to the brain. I'm awere that we are exposed to harmful content, but we need to learn how to separate them. I think that even if seemingly information may looks useless but is actually crucial.
2.Compared to previous generations, we know more information, but why do we act less(More knowledge, less usage)? If you are not agree Why?
I don't think that we act less. In my opinion these days we are surrounded by large amount of information, but high percentage of them ais fake or harmful. Information were particular and harder to find once. Nowadays our knowledge is huge, but it is still many things to discover. When we think that we know something perefectly, it is just drop in the ocean usually. I think that the biggest difference is way of using information, Times are changing, people have better and better opportunities, but The nature of people will never change.
I agree that our generation probably knows more, why do we use it less? Because our knowledge is very distributed. We know a lot of things that are never will be useful to us, but we saw it in some YouTube video for example and remembered. Older generation though was learning a lot about useful things for them.
Totally agree with your statement and I support that view.
2. We have access to a lot of informaton, but people don't go deep into it. We can search for almost everything, but people think that what they read in news is enough for them and don't want to confirm what they just read
2. I disagree. How much you use your brain depends on ambition and, how sad it can sound, on genetics.
I think i gather informations but now always useful one.
2.Compared to previous generations, we know more information, but why do we act less(More knowledge, less usage)? If you are not agree Why?
It's true, we learn more and faster but we have hard time while using it at first.
I think, yes. everyday we are learning something new. The question is will it saved to our brain or we will read the new information and after 5-15 mins forget it completly. Sometimes I have situation, that I read some information, "forget it", but at some point, when I need it I am starting to rembering it.
2.Compared to previous generations, we know more information, but why do we act less(More knowledge, less usage)? If you are not agree Why?
I think, that the type of our lives changed. Humans are constantly developing and out lives and everything around us also. Now we do not need to de a lot of staff, which our ancestors used to do.
I think that I find out something new and interesting every day, sometimes it is useful information, sometimes it is just some facts that are interesting for me.
2.Compared to previous generations, we know more information, but why do we act less(More knowledge, less usage)? If you are not agree Why?
In my opinion, our generation everyday sees gigabytes of information. It is such a lot that we have developed skills to filter and don't mention unnecessary information, also to see fake news.
2. We just overwhelmed with information...useful and not. We just don't need to do something. Everything that an average person can be curious about already written on hundreds of websites.
I think that we are just overwhelmed with informations. Some of them are usefull some of them are not and we have big problem with distinguishing information which is usefull and which isn't.
2. I do not agree with that. I believe that many new technologies and new solutions are emerging nowadays. It is possible that this is a longer proces than a few years ago, but it's happen like this because it takes time to think of something new and how to do this better and better.
1.Yes I do. But I think there are also many useless things comming every day.
2.Compared to previous generations, we know more information, but why do we act less(More knowledge, less usage)? If you are not agree Why?
2.Because we know more trash information which is useless for our knowledge or development.
Hopefully I will use it more efficiently with time.
2. Its the case for many people i think because, nowadays if You are not careful You can loose Yourself in activities that are unnecessary for Your development or even degrading You by taking away huge amounts of Your time by means of sensory stimulating technological techniques that are messing with the reward cirquit in Your head.