How much memory can the average human brain hold?

[GMK12]

Yea well, I always wanted to ask this question so here it goes, In your opinions How much can the average human brain hold in terms of memory? Now I will be measuring it by computer memory capacity terms. Will it be in the kilobytes, megabytes gigabytes or terabyte ranges? Well since sometimes we forget and we almost always forget something at any given time, I would say that in one instant, the human brain has access to about 20- 32 Megabytes of memory, In a lifetime however, I would say that a human can store up to 1 or 2 gigabytes of reliable, unfragmented memory.

[Cyndi]

Look up Kim Peek in google. His memory is amazing. He can remember entire books, I think.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Originally Posted by GrandMasterKaiju12

Yea well, I always wanted to ask this question so here it goes, In your opinions How much can the average human brain hold in terms of memory? Now I will be measuring it by computer memory capacity terms. Will it be in the kilobytes, megabytes gigabytes or terabyte ranges? Well since sometimes we forget and we almost always forget something at any given time, I would say that in one instant, the human brain has access to about 20- 32 Megabytes of memory, In a lifetime however, I would say that a human can store up to 1 or 2 gigabytes of reliable, unfragmented memory.

*sigh*

Our memory doesn't work like that. Our memory is held in a spongy mass of fatty tissue, and is effectively eletrical pulses in our brain. That means we've got more or less unlimited "space". Now, the fact we only use 25% of our brain power as we grow older, is just....I don't know why we do that. But still, I'm more than positive it's more than 2 Gigs...

[Zigra]

[quote=Dr. Strangelove Now, the fact we only use 25% of our brain power as we grow older, is just....I don't know why we do that.[/QUOTE]

That is a myth-

http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percnt.htm

[Dr. Strangelove]

Originally Posted by Zigra

That is a myth-

http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percnt.htm

Ah..

Thought so.

Never made sense really...

[Gorjirus]

How much we can remember is quite large. How much we can recall is much much smaller.



We remember too much and not enough at the same time.

[OniGojira]

No one knows exactly how much memory anyone has. You never stop learning. IMO it's limitless. The problem is how much of an active mind you have. If you keep up on reading and other stuff you gain knowledge. There was a guy shown on tv who was over 100 and had a sharp mind.

[Cyndi]

Plus memories may be situational, like you need to see a photo or experience something you did years ago to have the memory pop up.

My mom tells me the smell of baking bread brings back memories of when she was three years old and lived in Michigan. And my mom is 62 now.

When I smell Elmer's glue, I always think of making a Christmas craft in Kindergarten when I was 5. I just went and took a whiff of a little Elmer's glue to wake up that memory. The flashback is vivid - I stood at a round table, making a Santa face by gluing cotton balls one by one to his face to make the white mustache and beard. I'd given him blue eyes with a crayon(everybody else used black, even at 5 I was a nonconformist! ). I had glue all over my hands, which made the cotton stick to my fingers and smeared the crayon marks a little. My Santa had the bushiest cotton beard of all.

Funny how that works

[OniGojira]

Not to mention on how the mind works too this can fit in here. If the brain is damaged it will heal, but not the way it used to be. For example I saw on an episode of Ripley's Believe it or Not a guy was in an accident and had part of his brain removed. He used to a pilot and after the accident he suddenly developed this great art skills in sculpting clay figures. It just happened out of no where.

[GMK12]

EDIT: my zero button was not working so instead of 2 and 3 it should be twenty to thirty gigabytes.

[GMK12]

well, consering that we forget alot of stuff and sometimes never ever recall it again, the brain is pretty inconsistent, albeit "limitless" in memory, since the brain, to me, has a simple prioritizing system of chemicals and electrical pulses, it can never be as organized and reliable as a current computer can. Since there are no such "directories" and "RAM' and all that other stuff, the brain really is unorganized at ready retrieval of dormant storage. The computer, although "limited" it is very simple to retrieve even long dormant stored information. This reminds me of Kasparov vs Deep Blue...

[Cyndi]

Well those instances where things slip your mind tend to occur if you get distracted before you can "encode" something into your memory, like a person's name or where you put your keys down.

[Kaiser Kronos]

Somewhere on the order of nearly a billion facts over an eighty-year lifespan. Source: http://www.merkle.com/brainLimits.html