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When will your brain be full?

Clive

Critical Thinker
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Joined
Dec 10, 2008
Messages
368
Some time ago I watched a TED video about extending the human lifespan considerably by developing and utilising technologies to at least slow the ageing process. This made me wonder what it would be like to be (say) 300 years old but living in a body that was still in excellent condition.

Clearly our brains have a finite capacity in terms of memory. It also seems clear that we lose some memories over time if they are not "refreshed' in some way and perhaps other reasons also. So this could presumably be a problem if we lived long enough (and also didn't have any other way to artificially increase brain memory capacity).

Some questions:

1. If a human brain can be said to have the approximate equivalent of some amount of RAM, what is that amount?

2. Roughly at what age do you think this amount of brain memory is likely to be "exhausted" for an average person?

3. How much of your first 100 years do you think you might still remember if you were 300 years old, assuming your brain was (physically) in roughly the same condition as it was at its "peak" (whenever that was)?

Here I'm assuming the brain will basically "fill up" first and then perhaps be forced to relinquish some memories as further time goes by but perhaps a "full brain" condition might actually cause mental health issues?

4. Assuming the health of your body could be extended more or less indefinitely, how long do you think you'd like to live?
 
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1. I've heard about 2 terrabyte, but it is well known that the brain does not store memory in ways we're familiar with.
2. We constantly overwrite and superimpose memories. I don't think there's a specific threshold.
3. Depends on what you mean. Anecdotes would likely be largely corrupted, but I'd expect your knowledge of calculus or history to be fairly intact.
4. A millennium seems nice.
 
"full" isn't really an appropriate concept. You are constantly changing, strengthening and weakening memories you have. It's a myth we remember everything. Indeed, it appears we remember something only once, and the next time we recall it, we're really remembering the thing we remembered last time rather than the original memory.
 
As I understand it the brain doesn't exactly store things in a simple, digital manner, but rather the memory is some sort of intricate weave, crossing over here and there with a lot of intricate connections. A very powerful compression algorithm, if you will, with the problem that memories tend to "corrupt" each other upon uncompression.
 
We won't need much memory. Look at what cell phones have done: We don't need to remember our friends phone numbers anymore.
 
Enough to learn,
your brains will start to burn.
Minds will start to smoke.

Mine must be stufft,
it's turned to fluff.
Folks that is no joke.

How I know:
The tell me so,
Constantly tell me it.


My freinds they say
on every day,
that I am full of ◊◊◊◊.

Casebro
 
Clive said:
It also seems clear that we lose some memories over time if they are not "refreshed' in some way
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There is also a difference between, ehm, let me call them RAM memory and Flash memory:

- RAM memory: you remember what you try to remember. For example, you remember your date of birth when asked.

- Flash memory: you don't necessarily remember when you try to remember, but in some circumstances something reminds you of it (creates the link to the information which was stored in your brain all the time, but for some reason you were unable to create a link to the memory slot with your conscious efforts). For example, you don't remember the name of that actor in that movie, but one day in some circumstances you suddenly remember it. The triggering factor can be really anything, also sounds, scents or tastes.

So we don't know how many memories actually remain stored in our brain, we just cannot create a link to the data with our conscious efforts.
 
I always have room for new stuff.
The amount of old stuff I no longer can recall is interesting.
Lots of room... more every day.
 
quarky said:
We won't need much memory. Look at what cell phones have done: We don't need to remember our friends phone numbers anymore.
Click to expand...

We soon won't need to remember how to get to different places, or even where we are. We won't need to remember to turn out the lights or put another log on the fire. We'll mostly need to remember how to use the gizmos, and where we put them. Implants will solve that problem. Why remember the Gettysburg Address, when you can google it from the thing you had put into the back of your neck?

The technology to allow 300 year old people will likely come with some other high tech options...like barely needing to think, much less remember anything.

The good news is: Our brains won't have to be so large, so we can become much smaller, in time. We'd have lots more fun if we were smaller than a duck, for instance. Why be big?
 
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We'd all be hungry ducks. But we'd know martial arts and we'd have cool weapons.
We've mostly eliminated the scary big animals. We could get rid of tigers and sharks in 20 years if we tried harder.
 
Eh, odd to propose we'll live for 100 more years yet not adjust our bodies. The ability to attach electronics to the brain is constantly improving. 100 years from now I think it will be hard to find someone who hasn't augmented their body in some significant way.
 
Clive said:
2. Roughly at what age do you think this amount of brain memory is likely to be "exhausted" for an average person?
Click to expand...

Judging from the people I know, around 20 years old. For the good ones.

3. How much of your first 100 years do you think you might still remember if you were 300 years old, assuming your brain was (physically) in roughly the same condition as it was at its "peak" (whenever that was)?
Click to expand...

Well, I remember very little of the 27 years I've had so far, so I'm going to go with "very little".

Here I'm assuming the brain will basically "fill up" first and then perhaps be forced to relinquish some memories as further time goes by but perhaps a "full brain" condition might actually cause mental health issues?
Click to expand...

The trouble when questions like this come up is that people seem to way overestimate how much they remember in the first place. This simply isn't how memory works. You don't remember everything and then suddenly have a mental breakdown Johnny Mnemonic-style because you're full. Rather, you're brain throws out most of what comes in as irrelevant or boring anyway, and the rest is constantly rearranged and overwritten depending on what you do with it and what else comes in or goes out. While we don't know a lot of the details about how memory works, one of the things we are absolutely sure of is that it's definitely not like a disc drive that just fills up and then stops.

4. Assuming the health of your body could be extended more or less indefinitely, how long do you think you'd like to live?
Click to expand...

Until it got boring. I won't know how long that is until I actually try.

JJM 777 said:
RAM memory
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Random access memory memory?

quarky said:
The technology to allow 300 year old people will likely come with some other high tech options...like barely needing to think
Click to expand...

Just like now!:)
 
Clive said:
Some questions:

1. If a human brain can be said to have the approximate equivalent of some amount of RAM, what is that amount?

2. Roughly at what age do you think this amount of brain memory is likely to be "exhausted" for an average person?

3. How much of your first 100 years do you think you might still remember if you were 300 years old, assuming your brain was (physically) in roughly the same condition as it was at its "peak" (whenever that was)?

Here I'm assuming the brain will basically "fill up" first and then perhaps be forced to relinquish some memories as further time goes by but perhaps a "full brain" condition might actually cause mental health issues?

4. Assuming the health of your body could be extended more or less indefinitely, how long do you think you'd like to live?
Click to expand...

4. Long enough to prove to my missus that I can put that feckin Ikea wardrobe together.
 
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