Liz - The pace of what we are discovering about the brain makes everything we know about it a moving goal post; case in point the key role it now appears astrocytes or glial cells play in the formation of memories <http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/27913/title/Glial-cel ls-aid-memory-formation/> . Astrocytes account for around 90% of all brain cells. This indicates to my view of things that until we really do understand the actual mechanisms (and the second follow on ring of emergent meta-mechanisms that characterize and emerge within vastly parallel networks as well), it is too early to put hard upper boundaries on capacity. If we are just now discovering previously overlooked critical actors for the formation of memories; do we even really know that much about the physical mechanisms for memory in the brain?
This is, as you may have guessed, a subject in which I am fairly interested; I believe a rigorous micro and dynamic network scale understanding of brain functioning is required in order to form a theory of consciousness, self-aware intelligence etc. I also feel we are getting tantalizingly close to a kind of gestalt moment when all the pieces will emerge naturally as one whole dynamic elegant theory that will win someone a Nobel prize and a grand understanding of the brain/mind and of ourselves emerges. Cheers, Chris From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of LizR Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2014 9:32 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Eidetic memory and the comp hypothesis This is a very interesting point. What is the estimated capacity of the human brain? I seem to recalls some 10^17 bits being mentioned somewhere, or at least that figure has stuck in my mind (but not having an eidetic memory, or much of a normal one, I can't say where from). On 6 February 2014 15:58, Richard Ruquist <[email protected]> wrote: An aspect of my string cosmology is that the metaverse contains a 4D-space (in which one space axis is time) that records every event that ever happened in this and every universe much like the Akashic Records. Eidetics and gurus can apparently time travel in this block-space. Richard On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 8:32 PM, Pierz <[email protected]> wrote: The phenomenon of eidetic (photographic) memory is well established as a reality. For an example of what it means, read the top answer to this quora.com question <http://www.quora.com/digest/track_click?hash=2e8ec7de05b636790212092c83f093 6e&aoid=pLlVYjWVKa&aoty=2&ty_data=4012999&ty=1&digest_id=241884556&click_pos =1&st=1391558946766537&source=3&stories=1_L4sR6imoEQB%7C1_aytbQbnb2zW%7C1_jA 8otFvN9FH%7C1_4XH6bzBFPwr%7C1_4TMBUpDzRpy%7C1_8f6Kgdm4jXW%7C1_XDaAF5TDFVy%7C 1_zsSejxTjfe6&v=2&aty=4> . People with this gift/disability remember every moment of their lives in perfect detail. To me this raises real questions about the comp hypothesis and the 'yes doctor'. Consider the 'RAM' required for this type of recall. Memories are 3d and 'retina' resolution. If we consider that an hour of Blu-ray footage consumes about 30Gb, then some rough calculations show that Blu-ray quality footage of an entire life of 60 years would consume around 17,000 terabytes of storage. But these memories include tactile, olfactory and cognitive channels as well as visual and auditory information, and of course the resolution of the visual system is far better than Blu-ray. I'd take a rough guess and say that full recording of a person's mental experience in all external and internal channels would have to require hundreds or even thousands of times the bandwidth of Blu-ray. But even at what I'd think would be an extremely conservative estimate of a hundred times, we're up near two million terabytes (two exabytes). What's more, there appears to be no strain, no sign of running out of space at all, as if capacity was simply not an issue. This type of example makes me really question whether digital prosthetics are a real possibility at all - it looks to me strongly suggestive of a totally different way of recording information, or even of the possibility that recording and storage are the wrong metaphor entirely. 'Christian' in the above quora response says that he has little means of distinguishing a memory from a live experience, making for a very confusing mental life. This type of memory looks more like a kind of time travel than a recording. Perhaps this is still compatible with Bruno's version of comp - the universal subject inhabiting the pure space of Number - but it's more problematic for step one of the whole argument that leads to this vision, namely saying 'yes' to a digital brain. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected] <mailto:everything-list%[email protected]> . To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected] <mailto:everything-list%[email protected]> . To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
