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The brain is truly a marvel. A seemingly endless library, whose shelves house our most precious memories as well as our lifetime’s knowledge. But is there a point where it reaches capacity? In other words, can the brain be “full”?
The answer is a resounding no, because, well, brains are more sophisticated than that. A study published in Nature Neuroscience earlier this year shows that instead of just crowding in, old information is sometimes pushed out of the brain for new memories to form.
Previous behavioural studies [PDF] have shown that learning new information can lead to forgetting. But in this study, researchers used new neuroimaging techniques to demonstrate for the first time how this effect occurs in the brain.
http://theconversation.com/health-check-can-your-brain-be-full-40844
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Thursday June 04 2015, @01:16PM
It's not as simple as that.
There are some people that can remember every little detail about everything, those with an eidetic memory (photographic)
Then there are others that can't remember simple stuff.
I know this is also the issue of short term and long term memory and the interaction between them, but our brains are never that simple, and this question is just click-bait.
(Score: 5, Informative) by pTamok on Thursday June 04 2015, @02:18PM
Very true.
A great example of someone wih a truly extra-ordinary memory is Marilu Henner. The actress. Yes, her. Played in 'Taxi' a long time ago. There was a documentary knocking about which featured here and a number of other people with the same capability.
She can remember the weather on every day of her life from an early age (like 5 years old). Correctly.
She can remember what she was wearing every day of her life. Correctly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilu_Henner [wikipedia.org]
Henner has hyperthymesia and can remember the specific details of her everyday life since she was a small child.[3][4] On December 19, 2010, CBS's 60 Minutes aired a segment which featured six individuals thought to have this condition. As a longtime friend of 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl, Henner was included on the show. She discussed her memory further on CBS' The Early Show, NBC's The Today Show, ABC's The View and Howard Stern's Sirius XM show.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/marilu-henners-super-memory-summit-02-01-2011/ [cbsnews.com]
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-gift-of-endless-memory/ [cbsnews.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2015, @04:18PM
But how much information does all that really take? I can write a text file with these details and how big will it become over time? What if I compressed it? What if we cataloged the weather with just a few options.
A: Cloudy, foggy, or neither
B: Rain, snow, or neither
C: Hot, warm, cool, cold, comfortable
Lets say the average day in spring is neither, neither, comfortable. You assume that every day within that season is neither, neither comfortable and all you note are the days that deviate from the average and you note how they deviate.
So in my notepad if there was a day in spring that deviates from the average because it rained I just note that on this day it rained. I can assume that if it rained there were clouds and it was probably approximately cool or cold, there might have been at least some fog so I don't have to note anything more unless that day deviates and was somehow really hot or really extraordinary somehow. If I put this in my notepad over the years how big will it really get? What if I compressed the file?
and, really, you can set a default weather for each season or time span and only note the deviations. You can note that one winter was particularly, in general, colder than another. Or that, on average, from date A to date B it rained every day and just catalog the deviations.
I'm sure people can find more efficient ways to catalog the information than the above but the point is that how much information is really required if it's being stored efficiently. Isn't this the kinda thing the brain naturally tries to do, log trends and note deviations to save space? Much of having a good memory is about being able to spot the more efficient trends with the fewest deviations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2015, @04:35PM
(same poster)
As far as dress I'm sure there are some trends that can be associated with weather. When it's hot outside you tend to dress differently than when it's cold.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2015, @04:43PM
Correlation is not causation though. You almost sound like you are proposing a modern day miasma theory. Instead the choice of clothing may be due to contagion. Once a threshold number of people are wearing winter clothes, an epidemic of wearing summer clothes will quickly spread if the community is exposed to even a single individual doing that.