Memory Capacity of the Human Brain?

There are a lot of articles on this subject. Here's a plausible sounding one:

Morovec Hans, When will computer hardware match the human brain, Journal of Evolution and Technology, 1998. Vol. 1.

Short answer: about a billiion megabytes of information and half a billion MIPS of processing power.

Steve,

I had a lot to add to this discussion, but I forgot what it was.

Regards, Greg

It was once thought that intelligence and mental capabilities were set in stone, unchanging since birth. But much of what we know about the mind has changed since then, particularly in the last 10 years. Research has found that there are many factors playing even larger roles in IQ, focus, memory and overall intelligence. With the brain technology found here, someone with ADD, properly treated, can experience huge leaps in IQ score, sometimes up to 30 or more points!

what is ADD and what technology r u talking about

Your "thinking" (that's good) is based on claptrap you heard from others (including many who should know better) without thinking whether or not they were thinking (that's not so good) about what they repeated after hearing it from others. So, first, any brain's capacity is not unlimited--and, as is now known, it is possbible to exhaust much if not most of that capacity during an extended lifetime. Now, about this "make full use of it" folklore that goes around like so many other fallacious conceptualizations these days.

There is no known correlation which associates "intelligence" with one's "ability" (which by the weigh does not exist) to use more of one's brain capacity than another with less (so called) intelligence--whatever that is. In fact, a better measure of "intelligence" (we use the nebulous term only for lack of a more expedient better term) would hold that the more intelligent person is so by virtue of being able to use the least amount of brain capacity for any perticular problem of function. And, using less of brain capacity is the ideal to be sought, not more. In fact, a well functioning brain is "designed" to assure just that; that only a limited amount--the least necessary amount--of brain capacity is used at one time, a very limited amount. In other words, "intelligence" would be more a measure of how much can be recalled or reasoned using the least, not the most, portion of brain capacity. To understand why more is not the key to optimum brain function--and why the brain seeks to use the least--consider what might happen if one used more and more...even all of one's brain capacity at any one time. If not death, then serious impairment would quickly ensue--as both thought, recollection, and conscience and unconscience bodily functions compete for dominance--or even for accomplishment. Imagine what it would be like to enervate all muscles, and remember everything you ever experienced all at one time; or imagine a simple task, such as driving, if your brain had to perform all the hundreds of calculations for every second you drove--you would be incapable of getting very far or even starting the car. (Something paralleling a computer crash might be an adroit comparison.) In fact, for the body's survival, the brain is "designed" to limit how much capacity is used at one time. So all this nonsense about using more or less of one's brain capacity is just that: nonsense.

Now here's another tidbit that will help you ponder the brain more effectively in the future. It is easy to conceive of the brain as something like a computer, where more resources can be brought to bear on a problem. But a comparison with muscles would be more accurate--even when considering that thing sometimes called intelligence. That is to say, a brain, just like a muscle, becomes more effective--becomes stronger--primarily by repeated exercise. One generally increases "intelligence" by exercising the brain through training. Not be trying or being able to use more of the brain.

Finally, here's another one to think about: intelligence is something pertaining to children, not adults. Think about that one for a while and it will help resolve a lot of "issues" people so often struggle with when dealing with that word, intelligence.

Hmm, how does this explain people who measure high for intelligence and can create highly involved unique rational solutions to real world problems, e.g Albert Einstien. Intelligence is also a measure of problem solving capability and the ability to interpolate solutions from known solutions to similar problem or extrapolate known solutions out to dissimilar problems (and be relatively correct).

Perhaps this was a red herring (fallacy)--it introduces a question (unrelated to capacity) which the antecedent post was not attempting to answer; perhaps not. But it might be answered nevertheless by imagining how Albert himself might behave.

If we imagine him to be attempting to teach "problem solving" and synthesis of solutions, would we expect that, to a person having difficulty, he would encourage that person to use more brain capacity? Or, might he encourage him/her to conjur with more imagination and/or to keep working at it? Obviously it would not be the former, since Albert would surely realize, that insisting on more brain "capacity" use would be akin to asking a person to will their heart to stop; their eyesight to cease...etc. So the things he might encourage to facilitate better comprehension in another would be those things that he would recognize as lying at the heart of his own mental faculty (as perceived by himself or by others), such as: a relatively unbounded imagination; a present (and prior) environment not overly restricted in brain training opportunity (and parental/filial/spousal support and encouragement of same); single-mindedness and persistence in pursuit of overcoming a problem; the right kinds of interpersonal affiliations; things of that nature--the kinds of things which separate average from super-average; but not a thing such as using more of that which is already being used, insofar as the user can know, to its maximum: not attempting to use more of the brain capacity. The goal would be to strengthen the brain powers already being used, or able to be used; as well as imparting imagery which might find resonance with that which the learner already has learned/remembered--not with what the learner has never learned or remembered....in some unused portion of the brain. Remember also, that Einstein decried his own failure to overcome all the challenges which he set as tasks for his brain; but there is no record of his complaining at the end of not having been endowed with a more capacious brain which might have availed him resort to unused portions, the use through which his failures might have been avoided.

If you have been exposed to the higher capacity of the universal consciousness(if you have a very attuned right temporal lobe) then you already know that that the memory capacity is only a fraction of the knowledge that we can access if one has the knowledge and wisdom ...

Not sure I am in tune but, in my fridge I have eye of newt and toe of frog, not to mention my deceased step-mother's entire right anterior lobe. If thawed, will these help me gain exposure....? And access to memories I never remembered?