The Problem
Although I am generally considered "gifted" mentally, there are real limits to both my own brain and those of humanity in general.
It has been estimated that achiving an "expert" level of knowledge in any subject requires the learning of 50,000 to 100,000 discrete facts. From this, it can be expected that the human brain is limited to storing 300,000 to approximately 1,000,000 discrete facts.
Others have tried to gauge the limits of human knowledge in terms of digital storage. Many have based their estimates on the number of neurons in the human brain and the average number of connections between those neurons. These genrally put the storage capacity in the multi-terabyte range. Thomas K. Landauer based his estimates on experiments involving the learning of discrete facts and came up with an figure of 10^9 bits, or 120 megabytes, which he felt may have been off (low) by an order of magnitude.
Regardless of the actual number, human memory is clearly limited. I have begun to notice this limit, as I aquire new knowledge, older, infrequently accessed knowledge is forgotten.
But this is not the only limitation. The number of things I can think about concurrently is limited (at most two or three) and the small amount of working memory in the human brain exerts an upper limit on the complexity of my thoughts.
If I had my wish I'd be omniscient and multipresent, which is what this project is all about. The question is: how?
It has been estimated that achiving an "expert" level of knowledge in any subject requires the learning of 50,000 to 100,000 discrete facts. From this, it can be expected that the human brain is limited to storing 300,000 to approximately 1,000,000 discrete facts.
Others have tried to gauge the limits of human knowledge in terms of digital storage. Many have based their estimates on the number of neurons in the human brain and the average number of connections between those neurons. These genrally put the storage capacity in the multi-terabyte range. Thomas K. Landauer based his estimates on experiments involving the learning of discrete facts and came up with an figure of 10^9 bits, or 120 megabytes, which he felt may have been off (low) by an order of magnitude.
Regardless of the actual number, human memory is clearly limited. I have begun to notice this limit, as I aquire new knowledge, older, infrequently accessed knowledge is forgotten.
But this is not the only limitation. The number of things I can think about concurrently is limited (at most two or three) and the small amount of working memory in the human brain exerts an upper limit on the complexity of my thoughts.
If I had my wish I'd be omniscient and multipresent, which is what this project is all about. The question is: how?
posted by AKG at 7:14 PM
0 comments
