Friday, February 23, 2007

How Much Do We Remember?

Michael Anissimov has done a few calculations to estimate the total information content of our entire species memory, past and present. This is based on Bell Labs research which shows we retain about 2 bits per second, regardless of the type of infomration. By that measure, 30 years of memories at 15 waking hours a day would require only 150MB to store. Hard to imagine that my whole life could fit on a thumb drive.

Finally though I have a scientific explanation for why I can't remember where I left my keys.

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