Does the human brain have endless memory capacity?

[SoreArms]

It is said that the human brain permanently stores every single second of your waking life, every single event that has ever happened to you is stored and archived. What is forgotten is the path to find the storage location of the event/memory so that is the reason why you seem to "forget" certain things. I think this also explains why people seem to remeber lost thoughts when going to a therapist/psychiatrist/hypnotist/whatever. They guide you through the steps and help you find the path back to the storage location of lost memories.

How much information can the human brain hold? Is it measurable in something like Terrabytes or a zillion quazillion bytes? Is there a point where it just fills up, no more information can fit, maybe old memories get thrashed in place of new ones? Since it is said that we only use 10% of our brain's capacity, do you think anyone will ever, reach the point of full capacity (or do you think any one has)?

 

[Evil_Frisky]

'cut and paste' ?







J/K

 

[hamstershaver]

1 exabyte

 

[SoreArms]

'cut and paste' ?







J/K

^256MB limit

 

[Evil_Frisky]

^256MB limit

But I'm upgradeable... I come with slots for more storage....

 

[Forge]

It certainly has limits, the brain is a physical object with limited size and capacity. Most likely those limits are far beyond what any living human has ever used.

A neater question is how would the brain handle being filled to it's limit? Would it purge old memories, or simply stop storing new ones? Would there be some warning or indication that you are approaching a "disk full" status?

 

[bran987]

when this happened to John Travolta he got a tumor and died

 

[*MissFit*]

Our mind only allows us to see, remember what we can handle.. it is a marvelous thing

 

[strangebrew]

A lot more than most people realize.

 

[Ulcasterdropout]

Nothing is endless...