Wednesday, May 11, 2005

brain in bytes

i was pondering how convenient it would be to have a MMC card slot somewhere behind my ear, which connects directly to my brain, so that i can store/retrieve/share data or memories with people. u know, a la johnny mnemonic, or maybe a live jack like neo's. :)

n then it occured to me that if this was to work, then it'll mean that we have already devised a way to categorize each cell in the brain, and calculate how much storage they have. like, how many bytes each cell can store. or maybe, it's synapse's (the electrical pulse in ur brain) storage size, instead of each cell.

n then, there's the question of how fast the data can be transmitted, like ur average hard drive having 7200rpm or 10krpm with 8MB buffer. then there's the bus width of the interface n FSB... hhhmmm...

a search in google gave some pretty disheartening results:
link1
link2

well, they're obviously right. a human brain is not organized as computer storage is. we don't really operate by binary bits n bytes, but more in a fuzzy approach, without clear cut 1's n 0's.

recall ur first kiss, then recall ur 10th kiss. i bet u ur memory on the 10th one is probably not as clear as the first one. this is what the fuzzy part means - the quality of the data stored. if it's just simple binary, then both should be as easily remember an as clear as each other, if either can be remember at all. 1's n 0's. :)

i guess we're still a long way from johnny mnemonic. we'll all have to stick with the old, slow way of learning things for a while more.

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