how much storage are we capable of,?

Question

We all know we can create and store data on a pc, the storage of the hard drive can be very large, 2,3,4,5 Gb, Terrabytes whatever, we know that that has it's limit, we can store only that amount of data and it's full.
What about the human brain, it has been storing data since we were born and maybe before that, but when is it full, does it get full,.
I don't think so either, so what is my question?
Do you think it is possible that whatever way the human brain stores data, can or will be applied to computers, there is bluetooth technology, can we hope to connect our brains storage system to a pc in the same way?

Answer 1

So many questions...
The human brain has its limits. It's restricted by the brain's cooling system. The more we think the more we use energy, which creates heat, which has to be dissipated.
Also the neurons have to be fed. Cheetos has the most brain food per pound. That's why "Geeks" favor them so much.
To answer the other questions: The human brain is very slow in linear speed, but quick due to the trillions of parrallel connections of dendrites. Some of this technology will be applied to computers, but the computers will be able to work much faster. At some point the computers will out-think our human brains.
Your idea of connecting the computers to our brains using blue tooth is a good one. It will enable us to increase our thinking by an unlimited amount. Thus the smart will become smarter and the dumb will become dumber. This will create an even bigger gap in our society. Some humans will be relagated to slavery, while others will live the life of Riley.

Answer 2

Information isn't stored in the human brain in bits and bytes. It is stored in patterns. Connections between neurons. You can't really run out of connections.

Your brain does do some very clever things to economise though. It cheats. For instance do you remember your drive to work every morning? No, you don't. What you remember is a 'typical' average drive to work. Your brain summarises the information of 'drive to work' so that no additional 'space' is needed to store it. You only remember details about it if an something special or out of the ordinary happens.

Likewise, we don't actually take in and process most of the details around us, there is too much to see and hear, and sense etc. so our brain doesn't actually show us everything that is around us, it shows us what we expect to see. Our brain only notices what it needs to and then fills in the gaps with old patterns. Ever put something down for 5 min and then can't find it? That little change didn't get registered in your brain, if your whole desk moved you would notice, but not the little things.

Your brain generates your knowledge of your environment from what you expect to see not by only sensing what is going on around you.

So to the second part of your question: I think that there will come a day when we can download our consciousness into a machine. It would need to make a record of all the patterns and neuron connections. At the moment the complexity is far beyond what our hardware is capable of. Also there is the problem of extracting the information and then retrieving it in a useful and meaningful way. Massively complicated. Won't happen in our life times. But just the fact that we can define the scope of the problem means that it could happen one day; provided that humanity doesn't suffer a major set back due to over population or climate devastation.

PS It isn't true that only 30% of the brain is used. We don't know what 70% of the brain is used for or how it is used; that is not the same as knowing that it isn't used. Having a large brain is evolutionarily costly, so we would have lost any parts of the brain that weren't vital to us. We do use it all; we just don't know how it all works.

Answer 3

This is a tricky one because the brain is not even vaguely like a computer.

The comparison made today is like that made 200 years ago when people compared the brain to the most complex machine of the day - the weaving loom. And todays comparison is no more helpful.

It is quite clear that the brain is organised completely differently to a computer, and in particular that individual cells have many more connections than an individual component of a computer would. This means that a comparison in bytes is useless.

To make matters worse, neurons in the brain can move and change their connections. A computer cannot do this.

Its a bit like using a measure of bytes to compare information. On this basis a digital image of white noise (which by definition has no information) would be larger than a volume of an encylopedia digitally coded as text. So the byte count would be totally misleading.

That said, the human brain has between 20 and 50 billion neurons. Each has between 2,000 and 5,000 connection. This leads to a total of around 10^14 synapses (connections) in the brain. The number of ways of arranging these connections - the way the brain stores information - is collosal.

Answer 4

There are different opinions about this. One Y! answer, which I think is just before mine, says that we use 30% of our brain (actually, I had heard about 5% average and 10% on genius-type people) and would be excited to see what the human brain is capable of at full capacity. Have you considered what some people believe in such as telekynesis (or however it is written) and pyrokynesis? Maybe that is what happens.

On the other side, we will never be able to know what the human brain is capable of until we can extend our lifespan quite a bit since even 100 years are not enough to explore our full possibilities.

Answer 5

Why limit information access to the brain. We have access to visual, aural, etc information, prehaps the brain is similarly an organ of perception, and the information available is much wider than our current beliefs allow.
The buddhists have considered thought to be a sense for 2500 years . Our brains do filter what we perceive conciously, according to learnt priorities and patterns, change those ,or step back from them and who knows what is possible.
Prehaps if we posit the many worlds theory, each world is a store of information, and we can experience any of them according to what we believe possible. One well known physicist has written a book suggesting that time is just an illusion created in realities where conciousness and memory are present in a 'static' moment/reality.
Answer : storage is unlimited. We limit our selves, by believing in our limits.
I guess experiencing limitation is fun ?

Answer 6

I've seen estimates from 3 to 1000 terabytes (1 petabyte), but these are very inaccurate. The brain works differently than a computer; some cells specialize, and the connections work in a way such that one neuron can hold more data than one byte.

Answer 7

To everybody's knowledge, the brain stores an infinite/ limitless amounts of information. However, the problem is that it is thought to be in our subconsciousness(the brain's version of data compression?). Maybe the brain stores the more important information (your name, how to add and subtract...etc) in your consciousness so you can reach them at all times. I would think connecting with your brain would be an immense task. I mean what kinds of file extension would the brain use? .exe? .jpg? Also we would have to find a way to connect to the brain like the plug idea in Matrix.

Answer 8

the human brain is the worlds most sophisticated computer and it is designed to store information from conception till death. it is probably impossible to measure how much information can be stored as the human brain is always processing information even during sleep. the only sad thing is for now, humans only use approximately 30% of their brain through out life the rest remains dormant, I would be very interested to find out what it can do if all 100% of it is used

Answer 9

The brain is the most complex computer known to man, I would not like to see us match it's technology as it means super AI which can lead to anything.

As for plugging your brain into a computer to input data, I dont like the sounds of that, what is there to stop it going the other way? i.e. you don't control the computer, the computer starts to control you bu inputting data into you.

Tecgnology is moving very fast, especially when it comes to storage devices, but i think what we have is sufficient for most people.

Answer 10

brain will develop the Gb as we try to store more so if you earn more you have more space to store it . It has no limitations . the bluetooth i dont think that is going to work in this coming decades
Maybe after hundreds of years .