On 2010-11-06 05:46, bearophile wrote:
Walter Bright:
Yeah, well, my brain is full. In order to learn new facts, I must discard an
equivalent number of existing ones. I've had to discard everything I ever
learned about chemistry, for example.
As a human brain gets older, its ability to quickly retain new information
decreases. When you are 18 years old you are able to learn lot of stuff the
first time you hear it, while when you are 50 years old you need to listen to
the same information some times to learn (unless you are very trained to learn
a specific kind of information: a chess master is able to quickly memorize all
the moves of a game even at old age).
But what you have said is partially wrong. The mammal brain doesn't have a
fixed space for information, the more you learn the more space you have to
learn, because while neurons are in finite number and their number decreases
with age, new and synapses can be build every day, and higher level ways to
store information in the semantic network may be invented by a mind.
Book titles about what I have said on request :-)
Keep learning,
bye,
bearophile
Even though he may actually not forget a particular fact it will be
harder and harder to find the fact because of other things "blocking the
way". Eventaully it will seem you have forgot the fact.
--
/Jacob Carlborg
