Memory Size - Page 2

[Ancient Dragon]

Infinite capacity to produce neurons? The same is true for many other things, including producing blood.. The overall total neurons has absolutely nothing to do with acquiring knowledge..

I tend to agree. It was Lardmeister who claimed there was that relationship.

Now on to the limit of knowledge... how does my example not show a definite limit in the acquisition of knowledge?? As I said in my example, suppose an individual attends school for the rest of his life just to learn the amount of knowledge that we have so far acquired in a specific field.. if that is true, then he has no time to come up with new ideas/concepts.

That logic is flawed because it doesn't take into account the ability for the human mind to multi-task and multi-thread. Many people can do many things at the same time, such as play the pinao while talking on the cell phone. No one can concentrate on one thing so hard that he/she can not do something else too at the same time.

Time is our biggest problem.. We will not live forever.. our race will one day cease to exist.. thus, we can not acquire an infinite amount of knowledge in a finite amount of time.

No argument there because that isn't the point of the discussion. The point is that there is no limit to what the human mind can learn. It isn't like a glass of water which can only hold a finite amount of a substance.

[Ancient Dragon]

so, if it _is_ infinite, just how much is it 10% of infinity?

Good question -- Josh made the reference to 10%, not me. I only said we only use a small amount of our minds (not because I have any scientific research of my own but that's the rhumor I've heard scientists tell us).

Current thought is that statement is false. We do actually use most, if not all of our brains, maybe not all at the same time, but there seems to be no unused portions. That bit of triva, however, has no bearing on how much or little we are capable of learning.

[joshSCH]

That logic is flawed because it doesn't take into account the ability for the human mind to multi-task and multi-thread. Many people can do many things at the same time, such as play the pinao while talking on the cell phone. No one can concentrate on one thing so hard that he/she can not do something else too at the same time.

No, that logic is not flawed.. I'm saying that a human just concentrate his entire mind on one subject. I'm not saying he can't learn anything else.. I'm saying ASSUME he only learned one subject his entire life.. thus, my argument does hold up.

No argument there because that isn't the point of the discussion. The point is that there is no limit to what the human mind can learn. It isn't like a glass of water which can only hold a finite amount of a substance.

Huh? I thought we were arguing whether or not humans could learn an infinite amount of knowledge.. which is false. However, it appears that you are trying to make the point that humans can potentially learn an infinite array of different things.. which is true.

Good question -- Josh made the reference to 10%, not me. I only said we only use a small amount of our minds (not because I have any scientific research of my own but that's the rhumor I've heard scientists tell us).

I mentioned 10% b/c it is a common misconception.. If you will re-read my post you will find that I said scientists believe we actually use the majority of our brains.

[Ancient Dragon]

No, that logic is not flawed.. I'm saying that a human just concentrate his entire mind on one subject. I'm not saying he can't learn anything else.. I'm saying ASSUME he only learned one subject his entire life.. thus, my argument does hold up.

You can ASSUME the Earth is flat too, but that doesn't make it so. you can ASSUME anything you want.

Huh? I thought we were arguing whether or not humans could learn an infinite amount of knowledge.. which is false. However, it appears that you are trying to make the point that humans can potentially learn an infinite array of different things.. which is true.

You are confused again. Re-read my statement. Just because a human can learn an infinite amount of knowledge doesn't necessarily mean he can learn all the knowledge there is to learn. At least I don't think that's a contridiction.

Actually, we are both just talking nonsense because neither of us is in a position to prove or disprove our statements. Its not possible to provie it one way or the other, very similar to debating whether the Big Bang theory is right or wrong. But non-the-less its an interesting topic.

I mentioned 10% b/c it is a common misconception.. If you will re-read my post you will find that I said scientists believe we actually use the majority of our brains.

I think that's where Nichito got confused.

[Lardmeister]

I think you need to study more. According to this the bran has infinite capacity to produce new neurons.
...

What I am saying is that a neuron takes up physical space, and I have yet to see any human running around with an infinite size head.

What you learn has to be stored somewhere, generally this is a collection of neurons. Alcoholics and heavy smokers who destroy large amounts of their brain's neurons lose the ability to learn.

[Ancient Dragon]

What I am saying is that a neuron takes up physical space, and I have yet to see any human running around with an infinite size head.

I've known a couple people who thought that was true :)

What you learn has to be stored somewhere, generally this is a collection of neurons. Alcoholics and heavy smokers who destroy large amounts of their brain's neurons lose the ability to learn.

I was never an alcoholic but was a heavy smoker for many years and have found it difficult to learn but not impossible, afterall we don't walk around like zombies :) I just have to work at it harder and longer.

[joshSCH]

You can ASSUME the Earth is flat too, but that doesn't make it so. you can ASSUME anything you want.

You are_completely missing the point. I am not arbitrarily assuming some random situation is true. The entire reason that I am assuming one human learns only one subject his entire life is to prove the limit. That situation is impossible, but shows that some limit obviously exists to the amount of knowledge that we as a human race can acquire. It takes a lifetime for that single person to learn and comprehend everything that is known about a specific subjects, and thus, there is no room for future development of that subject.

You are confused again. Re-read my statement. Just because a human can learn an infinite amount of knowledge doesn't necessarily mean he can learn all the knowledge there is to learn. At least I don't think that's a contridiction.

What? Either you are trying to say something, and it is coming out really bad.. or you are completely confused. A human_cannot learn an infinite amount of knowledge due to limitations of the mortal body (time for instance).

[bumsfeld]

Whatever does not fit into your neurons will go into your soul.

[joshSCH]

That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

[Ancient Dragon]

That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

I thought he was just trying to be a little sarcastic with that statement. Two :) :) for it.

[bumsfeld]

I just bought 4gig flash card for 15 euro, works real good!

[Lardmeister]

I just bought 4gig flash card for 15 euro, works real good!

Did you look at the size of the chip? Sometimes you can see it.

[Lardmeister]

Whatever does not fit into your neurons will go into your soul.

That is a super quote! Mind if I borrow it for the insight of the day?

[GrimJack]

Actually the urban legend that we only use 10% of our brains is false. I read somewhere that we actually utilize the majority of its potential.

Hmm.. your title is a bit confusing. Memory usually refers to RAM... and I seriously doubt hard drives will be commonly replaced by anything in the near future. We need something nearly infallible to store data, and hard drives can be safely connected inside the case without fear of loss of data (for the most part). Hard drives are usually quite sufficient for storing long-term data.. flash drives have pretty much taken over the role of floppies and cds.. an easy and quick way to transfer data between hard drives.

The usb drives that we all know and love (unless one went t-u on you) is actually just a small sub-species of SSDs (solid-state devices) which can last for about 1,000,000 operations per block. Currently, high-end manufacturers are running algorythms to make sure that all the blocks get used equally and stops using blocks that are approaching their limits. SSDs tech is so far above HD tech in speed, life-span, etc that I would expect HDs to go the way of 8 inch floppies soon. (ref http://www.storagesearch.com/bitmicro-art3.html)

Good call on that 10% UL; as usual, the scientists said one thing and the media focused on a number, dumbed it down, then repeated until it inundated the noosphere with an incorrect 'meme' (but at least not a malignant meme).

[GrimJack]

You are_completely missing the point. I am not arbitrarily assuming some random situation is true. The entire reason that I am assuming one human learns only one subject his entire life is to prove the limit. That situation is impossible, but shows that some limit obviously exists to the amount of knowledge that we as a human race can acquire. It takes a lifetime for that single person to learn and comprehend everything that is known about a specific subjects, and thus, there is no room for future development of that subject.

What? Either you are trying to say something, and it is coming out really bad.. or you are completely confused. A human_cannot learn an infinite amount of knowledge due to limitations of the mortal body (time for instance).

Some folks mis-construe incredibly large (but finite) numbers with infinity - like the number of possible connections in the human brain. The number is large (about equal to # of parcticles in the univers) but not infinite. One of the better models to use when thinking about memory is the hologramic model (some people do not know the difference between a hologram and a holograph - but that is kind of an inside joke and not particularly germane) wherein all the information is stored everywhere (er, roughly speaking). If you take a hologram of a glass of water and then study the hologram under a microscope, you will find the germs and such you would find in the real world version (grant me some high level of granularity here) and if you were to break/tear the hologram in half, you would have 2 complete images but would lose half the granularity in each and so might not see the bugs in the water. You can keep doing this until you have a million pictures of what almost looks like a glass of water (but I exagerate and digress).

It is true that the limit to our learning is probably our life span -- we have greatly increased what we can learn by, first learning to talk and thus teach, then by inventing writing and then printing, and then computers. Until there is either a major advance in transmitting knowledge or lengthening human lifespans, we might be approaching some sort of limit.

[bumsfeld]

Whatever does not fit into your neurons will go into your soul.

I wanted to add that a person's soul is formed from memories. Just my romantic notion.

[Ancient Dragon]

It is true that the limit to our learning is probably our life span

We don't really know whether its infinit or finite because nobody has ever even approached the theoritical limit and there's no way to scientifically test it that I know of (that really does't mean shit because I'm not a scientist). And yes, of course its limited to our life span, unless dead people continue to learn :) (hey! in St Louis they can vote, so why not?)

[Ancient Dragon]

I wanted to add that a person's soul is formed from memories. Just my romantic notion.

And your proof? You might be right but nobody knows if a soul even exists let alone what it is. But that's a topic for a different thread.

[Lardmeister]

We don't really know whether its infinit or finite because nobody has ever even approached the theoritical limit and there's no way to scientifically test it that I know of (that really does't mean shit because I'm not a scientist). And yes, of course its limited to our life span, unless dead people continue to learn :) (hey! in St Louis they can vote, so why not?)

And your proof? You might be right but nobody knows if infinity even exists let alone what it is. But that's a topic for a different thread.

[jasimp]

Infinity makes logical sense because you can always add 1 to a number.

[jbennet]

Infinity makes logical sense because you can always add 1 to a number.

But infinity cant exist if physicists believe that there is a finite amount of enery in time and space

[Ancient Dragon]

And your proof? You might be right but nobody knows if infinity even exists let alone what it is. But that's a topic for a different thread.

touché :)

[Ancient Dragon]

But infinity cant exist if physicists believe that there is a finite amount of enery in time and space

That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, afterall physicists believed the earth was flat at one time too. Take space for instance -- there is no end to it, just goes on forever. If there is an end to space then what's on the other side?

[Lardmeister]

That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, afterall physicists believed the earth was flat at one time too. Take space for instance -- there is no end to it, just goes on forever. If there is an end to space then what's on the other side?

You are right Ancient, our universe is what we can observe! It does go on forever, but time stops us from observations over such a distance.

I guess, you could say infinity is a value out of our mind's reach. If you could reach it, you could add 1 to it.

I think Stephen Hawkins uttered something like this.

[joshSCH]

And your proof? You might be right but nobody knows if infinity even exists let alone what it is. But that's a topic for a different thread.

Huh? Infinity is simply a concept. Forever. It is very important in Newton's calculus, and helps us in many different calculations. Whether infinity is practical or not is ultimately irrelevant.

But infinity cant exist if physicists believe that there is a finite amount of enery in time and space

"Infinity" is only a concept. It has no dependence on energy, space, or time.

[jasimp]

Stephen Hawking said in one of his books that the Universe may not be endless, it could be a sphere like the earth that would be impossible to all the way around because it would collapse before you got there.

[jasimp]

That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, afterall physicists believed the earth was flat at one time too. Take space for instance -- there is no end to it, just goes on forever. If there is an end to space then what's on the other side?

Another Universe maybe. The problem is size. A baby bird lives in it's shell and and one point decided to break out of his universe. Could we not do the same? A table seems solid to us but yet again size defeats us for it is not "solid". It is made of of trillions of atoms swirling together that each could have it's own universe inside. Could we be part of a blade of grass in another world that in there time we have only existed for a season?

[Ancient Dragon]

Yes I've thought about that a little too. We could also be inside someone's test tube, just as we have a test tube with water that is filled with bacteria.

[bumsfeld]

I like the idea of space being infinitly smaller and not just larger. This means fleas can have fleas too!

This concept could give us much more memory per given space.

[GrimJack]

"Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on,
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on."