3 ms·

In short: it turns out there are (few) people that have almost perfect memory, even 20 years back. And that this type of memory is totally new to science.

burgerbrain 16y ago
Emphasis on almost. As would be expected, their memory isn't actually perfect. Thermodynamics/information theory put a limit on how much information you can pack into a certain area/mass, and with our knowledge of biology we already know that the vast majority of the grey matter in our skulls isn't used for information storage. In other words, this is interesting from a medical perspective, but not a computer science/mathematics/physics perspective.
- RodgerTheGreat 16y ago
  On the other hand, if we could get ahold of a human with a perfect memory, we could easily establish (at least on the basis of orders of magnitude) how much concious-level information can be stored in the brain. This could grant tremendous insight into the functioning of our brains, as it would also give us a good idea of the "size" (in terms of neural connections, for example) of memories, thoughts and so forth as they are stored. We already have information-theoretic bounds on this sort of thing based on a physical understanding of the number of neurons and synapses in a person's skull, but they're very loose. It's like trying to estimate the storage available in a chip from the number of transistors on the die. What kind of RAM does it contain? How much is support circuitry? Does it contain RAM at all, or is it something more like a dataflow CPU? If we can fit a high-entropy sequence of N distinct digits into a brain composed of M neurons we might presume that storing each digit involves M/N neurons. If N is close to or greater than M, we might instead guess that data must be stored in-flight, which leads us down different avenues of investigation. But this is all really a thought experiment, anyway...
thesz 16y ago
Nope. It was known that some could have perfect memory. I read in my childhood about man who remember everything. He worked as a reporter and never wrote down any tasks editor gave him. That man told the editor that he won't forget and he did not forget anything, really. So editor send that man to psychologist who discover that he had perfect memory. )the story was about 60-s or so) The perfect rememberer had a mild case of synestesia, but he used it to his own advantage. He put so many hooks on anything that he couldn't forget even if he try. He remembers conversation by their content, sound, color, texture and taste (and much more). So every word has its own color, texture and taste, they make a web of them, much like labyrinth or city map. When I need something I shouldn't forget, I also try to put as many markers as I could. It hepls sometimes. ;)
- tylerrooney 16y ago
  Radiolab (a podcast that any HN reader would love) did a piece once about a Russian who had perfect recall of his life and could also memorize endless lists of numbers and Dante's Inferno in Italian (and didn't speak Italian). Unfortunately, he eventually went mad because his brain couldn't make sense of all the interconnections. The podcast in question : http://www.radiolab.org/2010/apr/05/limits-of-the-mind/ http://www.radiolab.org/2010/apr/05/limits-of-the-mind/
- nerfhammer 16y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Shereshevskii http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Shereshevskii

burgerbrain 16y ago

Emphasis on almost. As would be expected, their memory isn't actually perfect. Thermodynamics/information theory put a limit on how much information you can pack into a certain area/mass, and with our knowledge of biology we already know that the vast majority of the grey matter in our skulls isn't used for information storage. In other words, this is interesting from a medical perspective, but not a computer science/mathematics/physics perspective.

RodgerTheGreat 16y ago
On the other hand, if we could get ahold of a human with a perfect memory, we could easily establish (at least on the basis of orders of magnitude) how much concious-level information can be stored in the brain. This could grant tremendous insight into the functioning of our brains, as it would also give us a good idea of the "size" (in terms of neural connections, for example) of memories, thoughts and so forth as they are stored. We already have information-theoretic bounds on this sort of thing based on a physical understanding of the number of neurons and synapses in a person's skull, but they're very loose. It's like trying to estimate the storage available in a chip from the number of transistors on the die. What kind of RAM does it contain? How much is support circuitry? Does it contain RAM at all, or is it something more like a dataflow CPU? If we can fit a high-entropy sequence of N distinct digits into a brain composed of M neurons we might presume that storing each digit involves M/N neurons. If N is close to or greater than M, we might instead guess that data must be stored in-flight, which leads us down different avenues of investigation. But this is all really a thought experiment, anyway...

thesz 16y ago

Nope. It was known that some could have perfect memory. I read in my childhood about man who remember everything. He worked as a reporter and never wrote down any tasks editor gave him. That man told the editor that he won't forget and he did not forget anything, really. So editor send that man to psychologist who discover that he had perfect memory. )the story was about 60-s or so) The perfect rememberer had a mild case of synestesia, but he used it to his own advantage. He put so many hooks on anything that he couldn't forget even if he try. He remembers conversation by their content, sound, color, texture and taste (and much more). So every word has its own color, texture and taste, they make a web of them, much like labyrinth or city map. When I need something I shouldn't forget, I also try to put as many markers as I could. It hepls sometimes. ;)

tylerrooney 16y ago
Radiolab (a podcast that any HN reader would love) did a piece once about a Russian who had perfect recall of his life and could also memorize endless lists of numbers and Dante's Inferno in Italian (and didn't speak Italian). Unfortunately, he eventually went mad because his brain couldn't make sense of all the interconnections. The podcast in question : http://www.radiolab.org/2010/apr/05/limits-of-the-mind/ http://www.radiolab.org/2010/apr/05/limits-of-the-mind/
nerfhammer 16y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Shereshevskii http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Shereshevskii