4 ms·

So you don't believe that there's a spectrum of disability? You're either intellectually disabled to the point of not being able to dress yourself... or you're

by dmd 13y ago

So you don't believe that there's a spectrum of disability? You're either intellectually disabled to the point of not being able to dress yourself... or you're a potential Einstein - nothing in between?

smtddr 13y ago
I can't define what it means to be "Einstein". I can only say that "capacity for knowledge" in a "healthy" human brain is well beyond what it could ever be exposed to in a lifetime. Note that when I say "capacity", I thinking in terms of a computer harddrive(which is questionable). No "healthy" human being can fill up their brain within a lifetime. This discussion is pretty difficult in that there are things we can't define. I don't even know if we're all talking about the same thing when we say "knowledge" and we can't define "healthy", and the term "capacity" for the human brain is assuming we all believe the human brain really does have a limit. I can only assume there is some kind of limit in the same way I assume if I traveled in a straight line forever I'd eventually reach the end of the universe. It's just imcomprehendably large and nothing we do in a lifetime, currently 100 years or so, will reach that limit.
vwinsyee 13y ago
It doesn't seem like I can reply to smtddr's sibling comment here (probably nested too deep?). So here's my two cents: I agree that in context of memory, the brain's capacity does appear limitless. However, the brain's capacity to process all of the information that it's exposed to is quite limited. For example, for most people, working memory is limited to 7 items plus/minus 2. One part of a standard cognitive test is to expose the subject to a list of numbers, and after hiding the numbers, ask the subject to repeat them back to you (and again, but backwards). A similar test of memory is to ask a subject to remember a list of items, then ask a series of other questions, then ask the subject to repeat the same list some time later. Some people do pretty well at these tests; some don't (approximating a normal distribution in ). So while it's theoretically possible that all subjects do have all of the numbers stored in their brain, it's quite clear that there's differing capability at least in memory encoding and/or retrieval. I guess I also wanted to mention the concept of saliency. Different people will pay attention to different things even if all of the people are exposed to exactly the same stimuli. This is important because the brain only encodes to memory what it finds particularly important and/or interesting (i.e. salient). This can be trained to a degree: more experienced or trained people will be able to detect what's important, like a soldier being better able to "sense" the presence of an IED in a warzone. So even if everyone has exactly the same memory capacity, there'd still be variation in how well the brain itself decides to use that capacity.
- saraid216 13y ago
  > It doesn't seem like I can reply to smtddr's sibling comment here (probably nested too deep?). OT technical note. The reason you do not see a "reply" link is because you viewed the comment within X minutes of its posting. HN disables the reply link for that period. However, if you click on the permalink (the "link" text), you will still get a usable text box for replying. My strategy is generally to do this, but sometimes I actually just refresh to pick up any new contextual comments.

by dmd 13y ago

smtddr 13y ago

I can't define what it means to be "Einstein". I can only say that "capacity for knowledge" in a "healthy" human brain is well beyond what it could ever be exposed to in a lifetime. Note that when I say "capacity", I thinking in terms of a computer harddrive(which is questionable). No "healthy" human being can fill up their brain within a lifetime. This discussion is pretty difficult in that there are things we can't define. I don't even know if we're all talking about the same thing when we say "knowledge" and we can't define "healthy", and the term "capacity" for the human brain is assuming we all believe the human brain really does have a limit. I can only assume there is some kind of limit in the same way I assume if I traveled in a straight line forever I'd eventually reach the end of the universe. It's just imcomprehendably large and nothing we do in a lifetime, currently 100 years or so, will reach that limit.

vwinsyee 13y ago

It doesn't seem like I can reply to smtddr's sibling comment here (probably nested too deep?). So here's my two cents: I agree that in context of memory, the brain's capacity does appear limitless. However, the brain's capacity to process all of the information that it's exposed to is quite limited. For example, for most people, working memory is limited to 7 items plus/minus 2. One part of a standard cognitive test is to expose the subject to a list of numbers, and after hiding the numbers, ask the subject to repeat them back to you (and again, but backwards). A similar test of memory is to ask a subject to remember a list of items, then ask a series of other questions, then ask the subject to repeat the same list some time later. Some people do pretty well at these tests; some don't (approximating a normal distribution in ). So while it's theoretically possible that all subjects do have all of the numbers stored in their brain, it's quite clear that there's differing capability at least in memory encoding and/or retrieval. I guess I also wanted to mention the concept of saliency. Different people will pay attention to different things even if all of the people are exposed to exactly the same stimuli. This is important because the brain only encodes to memory what it finds particularly important and/or interesting (i.e. salient). This can be trained to a degree: more experienced or trained people will be able to detect what's important, like a soldier being better able to "sense" the presence of an IED in a warzone. So even if everyone has exactly the same memory capacity, there'd still be variation in how well the brain itself decides to use that capacity.

saraid216 13y ago
> It doesn't seem like I can reply to smtddr's sibling comment here (probably nested too deep?). OT technical note. The reason you do not see a "reply" link is because you viewed the comment within X minutes of its posting. HN disables the reply link for that period. However, if you click on the permalink (the "link" text), you will still get a usable text box for replying. My strategy is generally to do this, but sometimes I actually just refresh to pick up any new contextual comments.