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Do our brains remember everything?
Maybe our brains are beta versions, and after all the glitches are worked out, we'll get our real brains. Jul 23 14 03:20 pm Link Vivus Hussein Denuo wrote: There is no simple answer to your question as the brain is very complex. There is evidence that we remember--in some way--all the input from our senses. But the type of memory most of this input gets stored in is not actively searchable. That is, you can't actively try to remember it like you can actively try to remember what movie you saw a particular actor in... But information in this "in-active" memory can be pushed into consciousness by local events--like a game of Trivial Pursuit... Jul 23 14 10:37 pm Link Isn't the storage about 8 petabytes ? Sep 21 14 06:33 am Link take a look at this book. pretty fascinating reading. http://www.amazon.com/The-Future-Mind-S … 038553082X Sep 21 14 06:52 am Link How much do we actually remember, versus how much do we think we remember? The brain is likely to fill in an awful lot of gaps with expected info rather than actual. I heard it said babies sleep a lot, in part due to the overload of information it takes in. Reduces as we leran to filter out the repetitive/unimportant stuff. However, memory recovery techniques can assist in recovering a lot more than we initially conciously remember. Especially by focussing in on the senses other than sight. G Sep 21 14 03:31 pm Link Unfortunately, our memories are so good, we can even remember things that didn't happen.  According to one of my linguistics books, there are still people alive in Britain today who remember hearing Churchill give his famous Battle of Britain speech over the radio during the war: "...We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender..." Stirring speech. However, that speech was made to Parliament, but never broadcast over the radio during the war. People are remembering other Churchill speeches, and remember reading those words, and conflating those separate memories into one. It's a false memory but it feels no different from real memories. Sep 21 14 03:40 pm Link ByGRH wrote: Yep. See the post I just posted. Sep 21 14 03:43 pm Link It depends on who you are. There are people with very detailed memories of virtually everyday in their lives (from a certain point on). And they have passed the tests that prove it. 60 minutes did some segments on it and it is now being studied. It's called super autobiographical memory or hyperthymesia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthymesia http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/preview-memory-wizards/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-gift-of-endless-memory/ http://www.cbs.com/shows/60_minutes/vid … ry-part-1/ http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainme … -her-life/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/scientists- … er-memory/ Sep 21 14 04:24 pm Link SPRINGHEEL wrote: best answer. Sep 21 14 04:45 pm Link Leonard Gee Photography wrote: Well, here's a partial answer to the question I raised in the OP, from the Wiki article that you cite: " Some are of the view that the brain contains so many potential synaptic connections that, in theory at least, there is no practical limit to the number of long-term memories that the brain can store." Sep 22 14 01:28 am Link Vivus Hussein Denuo wrote: This is the part that fascinates me: Sep 22 14 03:52 pm Link I went to college with a guy who had the closest thing to a "photographic memory" as anyone I have ever met. This guy could read a textbook and then get a perfect score on an exam and quote almost word for word from the text. He had issues with the application of that knowledge and problem solving. it was like he was a storehouse of data, but somehow had difficulty using it. One summer he went away to intern at some research facility and when he returned for the next semester, he had a theory about human memory. He said that he believed that all humans had a capability of remembering most of everything they see and hear...but the problem (or the difference between each individual's memory) is in the "indexing", which is required for recalling the appropriate bits of information at the appropriate time. He went further to say that while his "indexing" was quite capable of bringing back the bits of information in response to specific query from an outside source(he did well on tests and quotes when prompted for the information), his "indexing" was not so capable when it comes to problem solving, where there is not a specific prompt for information, but rather the brain has to determine itself which bits of information would apply to the problem. Sep 23 14 09:50 am Link I think we have the ability to remember everything that happens, while at the same time have the ability to suppress or forget anything we wish to. For example, on the day of my mother's funeral, a relative spoke to me about a traumatic event I experienced when about eight years old. I had no memory of it and still don't. Intrigued I asked other members of my family about it and they confirmed the details. It has come up in conversation several times since but I still remember nothing of it. Meanwhile, last year I visited a village I was never in before or so I thought. As soon as we entered the village I knew there was a bridge over rapids in the middle of it. I had a picture of them in my head, which turned out to be accurate. Intrigued again, I asked family members about the village. Turns out my aunt had taken me there when I was about four years old. The mind is a strange and wonderful thing. The more science finds out about it the more strange and wonderful it seems. Sep 23 14 01:33 pm Link Vivus Hussein Denuo wrote: Would you be asking if they did? Sep 23 14 01:42 pm Link Vivus Hussein Denuo wrote: Yes, but a lot of it is stored in the Cloud and our brains are still working out the connections to retrieve more effectively. Sep 23 14 03:15 pm Link Vivus Hussein Denuo wrote: This is how I feel. It's like we all have vast libraries full of information, but very few of us have truly effective filing systems. Sep 23 14 03:25 pm Link Brian Diaz wrote: Perhaps it is nature's way of protecting us. Some things in our personal histories are probably better left forgotten. Sep 23 14 03:34 pm Link |
