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I have been brought up believing that humans have virtually unlimited memory storage (long-term memory capacity) at least to the extent that we won't have to bother ourselves with that in our lifetime. I have read somewhere that we ought to have enough capacity for multiple lifetimes.

I know that we can store information a lot better than what we can recall it.

I have also seem some attempts to quantify the storage in terms of bytes, usually around 1-1000 terabytes. This seems rather naive and I could not find how much bytes humans use on average in their lifetimes so it was further meaningless.

So how much information can a human really store within long term memory?

I want to know whether it really is so big (limitless, seems rather implausible) and whether it can be quantified?

Sklivvz
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1gn1t0r
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  • [Welcome to Skeptics](http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/1505)! We want to focus our attention on doubtful claims that are widely held or are made by notable people. Please [provide some references](http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/882/what-are-the-attributes-of-a-good-question/883#883) to places where this claim is being made. – Sklivvz Nov 02 '12 at 08:24
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    You cannot compare computer memory with your own. You don't really store images and videos in your head, you store impressions, filters and such so you can recognize them again. When you draw something out of your memory, you are actually using trained techniques which make use of your "filters" to bring the drawing as close as possible to "recognizing" the original impression. In other words, your brain is very good at "compression" and reutilization of "referencial" data. Computers are more like an extension for the abilities we lack, you could say they have more memory than us already. – oxygen Nov 02 '12 at 10:04
  • Also, putting aside the fact that we forget things and most of us can't remember every detail of every day of our lives, we have a major limiting factor to our memory: we're mortal, and we die. Therefore, at an absolute maximum, we have a capacity of under [123 years](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_people). But as I said, that figure is way high. – Josh Nov 02 '12 at 17:09
  • The next thing is that our brain 'compresses' past impressions. If you had a similar thing happening to you twice it might mix them up. People even remember things they have never seen (a problem with interviewing witnesses). I would cite references for this, but all I got is this [german podcast](http://cre.fm/cre195). – Baarn Nov 09 '12 at 22:43

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How much memory capacity does a tree have? If you punch a hole into the tree the tree stores the information of that punch a long time into the future by keeping the hole. It doesn't really make sense to quantify the amount of information that the tree can store.

Evolution didn't design humans to be good at recalling past events. It designed us to be good at doing things. Our brains are optimized to learn to deal with the world around us.

Learning a skill like walking means having to gather a lot of information about how to balance your weight. It's not useful to be able to remember every experience. The same goes for most information storage in the brain.

Barbara Arrowsmith-Young was a woman who had a learning disability as a child.

I reversed numbers and letters, struggled with reading and writing, and could make no sense of the relationship between the big and little hands of an analogue clock. Asked to perform the simple addition of a small two-digit column of numbers, I would randomly choose numbers from the left or right side. The logic of basic math, the concept of telling time, the ability to truly comprehend what I was hearing or reading: all eluded me.

On the other hand she had a verbatim auditory memory and a visual photographic memory. It seems that those people who can consciously remember all the details don't manage to be good at recognising the relationships between the details.

Understanding the relationships between details is important to make good decisions. If you understand that a mushroom is poisonous you don't need to remember consciously the time where you throw up when you eat the mushroom.

As most stored information is not stored to be consciously recalled it's difficult to count that information in a meaningful way.

Christian
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  • I was wondering for the case where we exceed the average lifetime of humans (transhumanism) where this might actually be the issue. – 1gn1t0r Nov 27 '12 at 19:01