Human Memory Capacity

Massive Capacity Revealed - Recent findings of science point to a massive human memory capacity. A 2004 Nobel Prize winning discovery pointed directly to neurons as the vehicle of memory. The memory for thousands of smells for animals resides in the combinatorial codes of their olfactory neurons. Combinatorial codes can theoretically store a galactic memory. The brilliance of the mind can only be explained by the presence of a massive memory.

Just ordinary people were reported to be able to store, at a glance, billions of pixels of visual data. They could recognize, with 99.5% accuracy, any one of 10,000 images shown to them at one second intervals. Thousands of distinctive multi-million pixel classifications were swiftly absorbed and retained in the memories of their visual subsystems. Instinctual responses from millions of years of evolution have merged with new data of myriad images, sound bytes, tastes and smells into an incredibly detailed human memory. Pixel by pixel differences in these sensory images are recalled instantly.

A Nobel Prize for research on receptor neurons.
The olfactory system uses combinatorial codes.
Normal people can differentiate between 1 trillion smells.
The early "nosebrains" depended on combinatorial coding.
The discovery of a "Bill Clinton Neuron."
The arrival of neuronal communications.
The nervous system can store "cubic miles" of bytes!
Human memory exists all over the nervous system.
The mind does not compute. It recognizes patterns.

Human Memory Capacity - Mouse Receptor Neurons
In 2004, a Nobel Prize acknowledged the discovery of researchers, who used calcium imaging to identify individual mouse receptor neurons, which fired on recognition of specific odors. The investigators exposed the neurons to a range smells. They found that a single receptor could identify several odors. At the same time, each odor was identified by several receptors. Different combinations of receptors fired to identify different odors.

Human Memory Capacity - Combinatorial Codes
The olfactory subsystem recognized smells, when specific neuron receptor combinations fired. The olfactory circuit used an "alphabet" (A to Z) of receptors to identify a specific smell. Combinations of receptors (ABD, ABP, or XYZ), fired to indicate different smells. Subtle chemical differences caused distinct combinations to fire. This ability to recognize combinations reduced the number of receptor types (A to Z) required to identify a multitude of odors (the infinite vocabulary of A to Z combinations).

In the experiment, scientists reported that even slight changes in chemical structure activated different combinations of receptors. Thus, octanol smelled like oranges, while the similar compound octanoic acid smelled like sweat. Remembering sweat smell is memory. Leslie Vosshall reports that, in her lab, ordinary volunteers, (not wine tasters or perfumers), could clearly distinguish between different combinations of 128 odor molecules, indicating an average human ability to differentiate between 1 trillion smells. Combinatorial coding provides massive human memory capacity.

Human Memory Capacity - Early Nosebrains
Dogs can quickly sniff a few footprints of a person and determine accurately which way the person is walking. The animal's nose can detect the relative odor strength difference between footprints only a few feet apart, to determine the direction of a trail. It was the same combinatorial coding, which enabled nerve cells of early reptilian nosebrains to recognize smells as safe, or dangerous. Myriad such judgments of the environment in cubic miles of codes support human memory.

Human Memory Capacity - Remembering Patterns
Odorant molecules reach the receptors in your nose, hitch on to a group of receptors, which recognize the odor. Calcium channels in the membranes of those cells open and calcium ions poured inside, generating electrical charges down the axons of those cells. You recognize a smell. Similarly, chemoreceptors in the tongue report molecules with information on taste. Other receptors are massed together to form sensory subsystems such as your eyes and ears. Human memory stores combinatorial signals generated by millions of similar receptors. Even the four "letters" in the genetic code – A, C, G and T – are used in combinations for the creation of a nearly infinite number of genetic sequences.

Human Memory Capacity - A Nerve Cell Remembers Clinton
Researchers discovered the “Bill Clinton neuron,” which fired on recognition of just one special face. The cell fired on recognizing three very different images of the former President; a line drawing of a laughing Clinton; a formal painting depicting him; and a photograph of him in a crowd. The cell remained mute when the patient viewed images of other politicians and celebrities. Scientists found similar cells in other patients, which selectively recognized Jennifer Anniston, Brad Pitt, and Halle Berry. Human memory assists in identification of people and places by remembering combinations in myriad neural recognition subsystems.

Human Memory Capacity - Neurons Laid The Foundations
Before the arrival of nerve cells, the earliest multicellular forms moved about and swallowed, or expelled food, by contracting their cells. The contraction was effected through chemical signals, the forerunners of hormones, which diffused quickly throughout the system. But the diffusion of chemicals was slow over longer distances and they could not be specifically targeted. Nature developed neurons to transmit specific information. Human memory comes from the ability of neurons to remember and recognize specific neuron firing combinations.

Human Memory Capacity - Cubic Miles Of Bytes
The memories of computers are measured in terms of their smallest addressable element, called a byte. A byte usually contains eight binary digits. Nerve cells also have an “all or nothing” binary response. If combinatorial codes are remembered by nerve cells, each combination of firing inputs received by a neuron with 100 dendrites could contain 100 binary digits. The possible number of unique combinations of inputs for a single neuron with just 100 incoming dendrites could be computed as 100 x 99 x 98 x 97 x .... x 2 x 1 possibilities.

That represents more than 1, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 unique possible combinations! Multiply that number by 100 and divide by 8 to measure the number of bytes of possible memory. A single nerve cell with 100 dendrites can potentially remember that many bytes of singular combinations. Some nerve cells have upto 2,50,000 dendrites! Only the possible existence of such codes can explain the phenomenal capacity of human memory.

Human Memory Capacity - More Cubic Miles Of Code
To get a proportion on human memory capacity, consider the estimates by science of the store of DNA codes in the human body. At the moment of conception, a single fertilized human egg contains information equivalent to about six billion chemical letters, which can be recorded in a thousand 500 page books. In a grown human body, with the DNA in each cell containing a sequence of over 3 billion chemical nucleotide bases, the total of those codes in the body would fill the 277 mile long Grand Canyon fifty times over with 500 page manuals! The memories stored by nature for programming life exceeds known computer capacities on an exponential scale.

Human Memory Capacity - All Over The Nervous System
Karl Lashley reported that memory could not be isolated to any region of the cortex. He had taught rats to run complex mazes and then removed segments of the cortex to identify the locus of memory storage for the maze. He found that memory could not be completely obliterated by ablation of any specific region. Nerve cells were richly interlinked and code memories powered millions of interactive links. The memory of a location in a maze for a sought reward could still be remembered as an echo, or scent, even if the visual and taste regions were injured. Nerve cells in widespread neural circuits stored such coded memories.

Human Memory Capacity - Maths Not The Answer
Science continues to search for a mathematical basis for the functioning of nerve cells. The central mathematical foundations of science support this view. In Principia Mathematica, Bertrand Russel held that all questions of logic could be expressed in mathematical terms. Great mathematical theories underpin every aspect of space and matter. Since scientists favor maths, neurons, the basic building blocks of human intelligence, are assumed to be computers. Nerve cells are presumed to compute, not recognize. So, memory research failed to note the significant combinatorial role of neurons in the Harvard discovery. That role mandates a massive memory capacity

This page was last updated on 31-Dec-2013

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Once, Decades Ago, I Tripped Over The Divine

For me, the flash of insight into the sublime happened way back in 1989. The vision stunned me with the grandeur of its simplicity. The startling prospect emerged from, of all things, an algorithm! Its potential flickered into my view by accident, while transferring a Prolog AI disease recognition procedure to a Lotus spreadsheet.  I had inadvertently reversed the logic of the Expert System, instructing it to eliminate improbabilities, instead of selecting probabilities. Such algorithms are just repetitive procedures. Cold and logical lines of code. But, they yield dependable results. Algorithms are just mechanical tools. But, this algorithmic code was unique.

The capability of the algorithm was that it could sift a Google sized database of connected facts to instantly recognize patterns. This was 10 years before Google started building its vast data warehouses. But, I knew the mind identified complex patterns when you just opened your eyes!  For the next few months, glimpses of probable neural accomplishments through instant pattern recognition kept waking me up at 3 a.m. I kept adding to the list on paper. The dots just kept connecting. Decades later, more possible links keep opening up new horizons - say, the seat of consciousness or the persistence of working memory. This algorithm could distinguish between good and evil. It could make us weep in anguish or gasp in wonder.  Could it be the fabled divine gift to life?

It worked in the mind. Gray's Anatomy was an exhaustive source and a starting point for me. Its 1500 pages listed the functions of virtually every mental organ. The algorithm could link them all into a single mind that could suture an artery, while recalling a tennis match. Starting at the input level, it focused your senses. The light from the heavens. The songs of the birds. The touch of a loved one. The fragrance of a rose. The taste of chocolate. We were blessed with millions of receptors, which flashed this magnificent perception of the world to the sensory regions of our cortex. There were association regions there, which could use the algorithm on this data to identify a pencil, or a word. We could separate the idea of a gun from the idea of a war in the abundance of incoming sensory patterns.

Object and event recognition. Algorithmic pattern recognition could act at every stage of mental processing. Things were happening all around us. There was a limbic system, where the algorithm could identify between good and bad happenings. It generated emotions. This mammalian region could drive us to attack in anger, or flee in terror. It was the limbic system, which held us in thrall. It filled us with despair, or tortured us in grief. It made us question the very meaning of life. Life was so unfair. Why did we have to suffer so?

Sadly, we lacked the capacity to naturally see our emotions and feelings. The limbic system was invisible to us. It was the algorithm, which caused the motor system to transform those emotions and feelings into actions. Hunger made us raid the frig. We went to work every day to avoid the pain of guilt. Love reminded us to pick up children from school. Hatred built the death camps. In the end, urges from the limbic system drove us out of Eden.

As a precious compensation, algorithmic pattern recognition ascended to higher levels. Our prefrontal regions gifted us with science and logic. Those skills enabled us to understand the vast structures of the cosmos. We built leviathans, which could sail the oceans and fly the skies. We explored the heavens. Our powerful civilizations conquered the continents and explored the cosmos. Even more, the algorithm also pointed us to the divine, which defied logic and definition. We sensed the order and beauty, which, like the laws of nature, existed from the beginning of time.

Pattern recognition dealt with subtleties. Reason and logic could not create great symphonies, or works of art. Why do we stand in awe of the sunset? Or find joy in a lilting song, or in the laugh of a baby?  Nerve cells recognized such patterns without our awareness and fired to initiate the skin tingling thrill. Who, but the Designer, could possibly want to hard wire us to thrill to the astonishing splendor of the design?

Over three decades have passed since my first glimpse of the truth. Like an ancient city hidden by forest cover, the vast and invisible city of the mind has many avenues linking its great palaces and temples. I also realized that those divine pattern recognition paths led to still spaces, untrammelled by the ravages of emotions and feelings.... Life was worth living! Even the great sages of the past advised us to still passions to empower the sublime within us. The divine stillness lives at the core. You too can find your home there.

The information provided in this website is useful for the modification of normal behavioral patterns. Please do get professional help, before applying the advice for the treatment of any abnormal behaviors. Copyright ©2008 by Ebbi Thomas. All rights reserved. This material may be freely published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.