Memories may be stored outside the brain

Originally posted by filledcup
60 x 10^9 = 60 billion base pairs
60,000,000,000 bytes
60,000,000 kilobytes
60,000 megabytes
60 gigabytes
edit: 60 / 4 base pairs = 15 gigabytes

You count one base pair as one byte. In fact, it's two bits: 2^2=4 (A G C T). And human genome contains 6 billion base pairs, not 60 billion. This is about 1,39 GBytes of raw uncompressed data. By utilizing modern compression techniques such as this one, the size can be reduced 100-150 times. In the abstract to the linked article they claim that a personal genome sequence was compressed to just 18.8 MB of data.

Originally posted by InSolace
reply to post by kmb08753

 

The title says 700 tb per gram, now imagine how little a single DNA molecule weighs compared to a gram
an attogram, according to this article
That's a gram with 10 to the power of -18 gram x 10 to the power of 14 tB

You can't use that attogram for any calculations as you're trying to do because the article doesn't tell us anything about the DNA they measured to be an attogram. That's certainly not the mass of an entire human DNA chromosome. How many base pairs were in it? They don't say. You would need to know that to do calculations using that number, but you don't need that because there's a better way to calculate it.

You can do weight calculations from scratch using the components of the DNA molecules, and adding up the weights of the components, and use Avagadro's number.

Assuming 25% each of Adenine (A), Thymine (T), Cytosine (C), and Guanine (G), we just average their molecular weights:

Adenine Molar mass 135.13 g/mol
Thymine Molar mass 126.11 g/mol
Cytosine Molar mass 111.10 g/mol
Guanine Molar mass 151.13 g/mol

Average = 130.86 g/mol

Since human DNA has about 6×10^9 base pairs/diploid genome, that's 1.2 x 10^12 molecules

Avogadro constant is 6.022×10^23 molecules/mole, which means that the human genome contains
1.2 x 10^12 / 6.022×10^23 moles = 1.993 x 10^14 moles

So, 1.993 x 10^14 mol x 130.86 g/mol = 2.59 x 10^-12 grams,

This is approximate mass of human DNA, if my math is right, which is maybe a million times greater than the figure you cited from the other source which was obviously not the mass of a complete human DNA chromosome.

I did that to show your source was not for human DNA, but there's a simpler calculation. Just use molecular weights.

130.86 g/mol / 6.022 x 10^23 molecules/mole = 2.173 x 10^-22 grams per molecule.

We need 8 base pairs, or 16 molecules for one byte, so one byte weighs:

16 x 2.173 x 10^-22 = 3.477 x 10^-21 grams per byte

The inverse of that is bytes per gram:

2.876 x 10^20 bytes per gram which I think is 287 million terabytes per gram.

if you use DNA as purely a data storage device, and ignore the DNA function. Note this does not allow for address blocks, it's just raw data.

Now if you look at this article:

Harvard cracks DNA storage, crams 700 terabytes of data into a single gram

They are not using all the DNA for storage. They are using some of it for address blocks:

each strand of DNA has a 19-bit address block at the start (the red bits in the image below) — so a whole vat of DNA can be sequenced out of order, and then sorted into usable data using the addresses.

So the fact that they are using address blocks accounts for some of the discrepancy between 700 terabytes per gram and 287 million terabytes per gram, but I don't know what accounts for the rest, though here is a clue from the source:

smashing the previous DNA data density record by a thousand times.

So the 700 terabytes per gram is only the latest experiment, which I'm sure can be improved upon a thousand times again, just like it improved on the previous experiment by a thousand times. Apparently none of these experiments use the theoretical capacity of DNA. Even if you cut the 287 million terabytes per gram in half for address space, it still dwarfs 700 terabytes per gram.

Consider a hard drive. If you just consider the data storage of the magnetic coating on the platters, it's very high density in bytes per gram. But the platters themselves are mostly structural supports for the magnetic medium so total density per gram of the hard drive is much lower than for the magnetic coating alone, which is the actual storage part, so the actual storage density in bytes per gram of a hard drive will never approach the theoretical storage density of the magnetic coating on the platters.

I could have made a math error but if I did someone will have to point it out, as I didn't find it, so I think my math is right.

The only potential genetic link that I have found to the way my memory works is my grandmother... and it is really just speculation. My grandmother always baked for the holidays... and I mean BAKED... hundreds of dozens of cookies, pies, cakes... you name it. She never used a recipe for any of them... she did it all from memory. She did have them all written down... but after writing them down, she filed them away and never had to reference the original again. It was quite remarkable.

Is it possible that mine is genetic from my grandmother? If so, why? Why can't any of my other family members recall memories with the same acuity that I do? Dunno. It's weird...

reply to post by cbaskins


This is super compressed but here is what I have learned,

All atoms are breaking apart and reforming so fast they cant measure the frequency, to do this there has to be extra communications AND MEMORIES inside the sub atomic particles so they know what atom to rebuild.
I will take it further and suggest since matter is being generated ,our memories ride on these sub atomic particles and could be stored light years away.This would explain many of the cases where people wake up one day speaking russian but never went there and never learned russian. It also has happened with other languages.

I've heard some bits and pieces on this theory and a few others...it's an interesting thing to ponder.

One theory I read said perhaps parts of our memory are actually recorded in the magnetosphere, stored to our individual "brain" frequency. The reason some people are "psychic" and pick up thoughts and memories is because their brain wave frequency is very-very close to another persons...so therefore they get a "shared" thought or memory...I found that thought rather cool.

Just a random observation...

Originally posted by kmb08753

Originally posted by madmac5150
reply to post by cbaskins

 

Which is also interesting. But with salmon, is it a genetic memory, or a collective one? Do animals like salmon, geese etc. migrate because they carry an individual genetic memory that drives them to do so, or is it a collective memory that is triggered which is why they migrate as a group?

Let's change some of the genes and see if the fish change their behavior. Take note of the difference between the two groups of salmon. Change some of one group to match the other and see if they now go to a different spawning location.

A few million dollars, some geneticists and time.

Unless it is a government project... multiply the above by a factor of ten...

Originally posted by Amagnon
reply to post by kmb08753

 

THis is not really news, Karl Lashey (en.wikipedia.org...) discovered a while back tbhat you could train a rat, then cut out a random part of the brain and not impair its memory.

Karl cut out a different part of the brain of each of his trained rats, and found they all remembered their mazes just fine.

May that SOB burn in hell for harming a living being. Just sayin' ...

Originally posted by Stormdancer777
reply to post by soulwaxer

 

Matter doesn't create consciousness. If anything, consciousness creates matter.

yes

How?

Originally posted by soulwaxer

Originally posted by kmb08753
reply to post by soulwaxer

 

What studies have shown, empirically, that we can alter real world objects with thought? Sure it isn't just our perception of those object that is being changed?

While taking hallucinogenic substance many years back, I would swear objects would change shape, but as no one else ever saw the same change, it was clearly just my view that was altered.

I'm not arguing against it per say, a study showing someone changing the real world with their brain would be interesting to me.

But yeah, this type of discussion wasn't the point of the original post.

Reread what you just wrote:

"a study showing someone changing the real world with their brain would be interesting to me."

When you decide to take out the trash, this decision starts in your brain, right? Then signals are transferred to your arms and legs and what not, and then you take out the trash. The result is that the real world has changed.

The brain is a bio-electro-chemical machine that generates "thought". Yep, the synapses conspire to take out the trash. Do you believe in a ghost in the machine?

Originally posted by soulwaxer

Originally posted by R0CR13
.

reply to post by soulwaxer

 

I agree Consciousness is energy and part of the field of the universe .

I was so called brain dead from a drowning and was totally conscious .

Some people love to take a phony scientific view while ignoring the true nature of our being .

We are Energy ! Everything is Energy !

And I will not censor myself to conform to the ignorant ... it's time to move on and understand what we really are and how we fit into the universe .

.

Yes! Everything is energy. Even matter is energy. Energy with form.

Since you're using a term found in physics (e) I'd like you to explain how energy and consciousness are related?

Originally posted by Astrocyte
reply to post by kmb08753

 

Not as an argument against your post, but until we can demonstrate something it should be kept in the realm of philosophy, not science. And personally, unless you can show me, I won't believe it.

I tend to agree.

But lets not forget that science too has its philosophical assumptions. For example, physicalism. Physicalism does not provide an intelligible explanation for consciousness; so as long as consciousness remains unexplainable by physical reductivism, it's plausible that the problems were having with genes might be related to our problem with consciousness.

Of course, science will progress, and eventually the field of genomics will be savvy enough to determine whether genes contain all the information there is to make a sheep a sheep and a human a human, or, it'll encounter a brick wall, and other theories will be entertained.

If the mental is real - and frankly there is plenty of reason to suspect that it is - then one would assume that there is some causal relationship between consciousness and physicality. Some theorists believe quantum mechanics will eventually fill this gap, explaining how the possibilities become probabilities through quantum processes.

Nowadays plenty of people deride this speculation, but I don't exactly understand why. Admittedly, it is ahead of its time. Most scientists want to limit themselves to the physical before they start vetting questions about the mental. The logic is, lets understand things from the ground upward. This is what science has been doing for centuries, and I don't think were at any particular breaking point quit yet. Neuroscience has a century or so before the brain is really figured out; genomics too is still in its infancy. In a sense, it makes sense to limit your discussion to what we've been considering. But my intuition tells me that the physical will eventually knock on the front door of the mental, and when that happens, science will entering new territory.

You are still caught in the Cartesian great divide. Neuroscience has come a long way. I highly recommend the book "The Problem Of The Soul" by Prof. Owen Flanagan. It's a tough read, but his perspective will blow your mind (not your soul).

I've posted before around here that there is a new branch of alternative therapy developed by Dan Nelson involving metal discs combined with geometric shapes to reset the chakras and energy centers in the body. Nelson developed the idea that there is a quantum energy field around each one of us, and this energy field is where our memory is stored and the brain accesses this quantum field for processing. Very interesting stuff. I just had a treatment about a week ago and can attest to the changes I felt, but healing is an internal process involving body cell memory of trauma.

Here's Nelson's website

www.advancedwellnessquest.com...

Originally posted by NorEaster

Originally posted by QuantriQueptidez
Yea, because amnesia after organic brain damage is part of your soul taking a vacation, and alzheimers is the devil... ooookay.

Actually, the brain accesses contextually attributed residual fact sets that (as a result of the specific attributing system itself) reside in what amounts to a "memory cloud" (sort of like the data cloud concept within company intranets). If the brain is damaged in the region where specific access circuits are located, then those "memories" will never be accessible, and there you have amnesia or dementia-related memory loss.

Migratory animals share a "memory cloud" that helps them survive as a species, with some sets contextually associated with the migration process, and the brains evolutionarily developed to "reach" for those instructions when environmental factors hit a predefined "tipping point", which is why all such group-think occurs per locality, as opposed to species-wide.

Human beings do not share a memory cloud. Most predators don't as well, with lions and wolves being a prime example of apex predators that do share one, but on an as-needed basis.

When the human brain dies, the contextual specifics become meaningless, and the data itself is effectively "released" as simple Residual information - no different than any other fact set collective, as far as the rest of the environment is concerned. It wasn't created by the human brain. It emerged as an environmental default response to the specific information that the brain itself created. Once the brain has died, it's no longer unique or necessary for anything other than the Identity definition of the Contextual Environment as a whole, as is the case with all residual fact sets.

Fascinating, but my brain doesn't understand a single thing you are trying to communicate ... lol. Could you please drop the jargon?

contextually attributed residual fact sets

Originally posted by supergravity
reply to post by cbaskins

 

All atoms are breaking apart and reforming so fast they cant measure the frequency, to do this there has to be extra communications AND MEMORIES inside the sub atomic particles so they know what atom to rebuild.
I will take it further and suggest since matter is being generated ,our memories ride on these sub atomic particles and could be stored light years away.

That's not what I learned. What's your source for that? Either you have a bad source or you've misinterpreted a good source.

This would explain many of the cases where people wake up one day speaking russian but never went there and never learned russian. It also has happened with other languages.

Aren't you skeptical of those stories? Have you got an example of that which you think is credible and can be proven?

I think a more interesting concept isn't necessarily how memories are retained, but in how they are accessed. For instance, as I mentioned earlier, my memory recall is more auditory based... for instance, if I hear a jackhammer running, I can instantly recall every place I have ever heard a jackhammer of a similar pitch... I can also then cross reference all of the visual memories associated with that jackhammer to pinpoint the location... Pittsburgh, Oklahoma City, Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson airport etc... if I focus on Atlanta I hear and see the jackhammer across the road from the terminal... utility worker. It's the last week of September... 2001. I have a layover in Atlanta on the way to a class at Sheppard AFB. If I focus on Pittsburgh I see and hear that jackhammer downtown... 1990... or again downtown in 1978 near old Three Rivers... now, if I focus on the pitch and shift it a bit higher I get an entirely different set of memories of where I heard that slightly higher pitched jackhammer... Seattle, Panama City, Columbus... etc. and I can focus on the details of all of those days and cross reference even further. Panama City... 2002. More specifically Okaloosa Island. 3rd week of August. Somewhere out of my line of sight, but behind the Waffle House... I remember the song on the radio. When I hear it (the memory of that song) I can then cross reference every other instant where I had heard that song on the radio... and so on...

But HOW? How is it possible to not only store that much information... but also keep it constantly cross referenced and updated... on the fly?

When science figures that out, then I will be impressed...

I do believe there's a mainframe for everything and I think that our memories could be stored outside our bodies. Because some sciences say that the information we gain our lives are to big to store in the brain.

But talking about mainframe , then-again maybe the projection we" according to other sciences " seem to be in this holographic computer model, could be storing and retrieving or uploading all that data back and forth. and once and awhile someone gets the wrong info and couples that back as it was his in the afterlife?

always an interesting topic though ..

just my thoughts ...

reply to post by Midnight13


That is a very good question and I do not have an answer, I'm sorry. If I had to guess, I would say no. Blood is a transient thing, with a variety of shelf lives. The max long-lived are red blood cells at 120 days. White blood cells, live and die young, only a few hours to a few days. Source: answers.yahoo.com...

If it turns out that somewhere other than the brain stores memories, blood would not be a good place imho, as it does not last long. I think some of the other places mentioned in this thread would work better.

All of our organs have some ability to work on their own, this means that they have neurons similar to brain neurons to accomplish this. Why can't these organs have memories of their own....I don't think our organs believe they can't process things. I have never believed that the brain was the only part of our body that processed information. I have thought the ones that said that were messed up all along. Just because a lot of people believe something that is stupid doesn't mean it is true. I believe the brain is the main processing and storage point in the body but not the only processing and storage point.

Originally posted by kmb08753

Originally posted by filledcup
i tell you if you rely on science and logic only you will be a logical beast. holding no compassion, empathy. mercy. these qualities are the powers that make us human. the abilities a robot is not capable of. these true feelings are felt from the source of consciousness. God's Love.

see the inhumane beast that is a science and logic driven society upon the earth. the abomination it would create. it's regard for its people believed to have no soul. to be worthless and temporary meaningless effigments that can be replicated and replaced. expendable. no God Given Constitutional Rights.. for there is no God.

Understand!

I am trying hard to stay on topic in this thread. But to say I have no compassion or empathy because I try to approach life with real-world reason and logic is insulting and flies in the face of modern psychology and neuroscience. It is logical to work for the benefit of society and biologically advantageous.

The real-world may very well may contain a god or über intelligence, but if so we should eventually understand exactly what that is.

Inhumane beasts exist within all flavors of belief. Selfishness and greed is universal.

dont take it personal. i am speaking about a collective over time. if there is no God there is only rational thought. and systematic execution of duties following protocol. what im speaking about is the influence on future culture if all were to follow the assertion that science can and will explain everything. of course these things are part of every human today. but if we do not utilize the faculties and develop them then they shall shrink over time. making us less compassionate and more like beasts over time.

eg. if a situation arises where it is discovered there are too many ppl on the planet, too much supply and demand deficiencies. the most logical solution could be to kill a percentage of the world's population. and it would be executed without conscience. because we have turned off our intuitive faculties. it is a devolution. without God there is no value for human life. as it will come to be rationalized in a future for a godless race. and also rationalized that God has no place in the constitution since he is regarded as a non existent figment of our imagination. this is what it will be to be ruled by Godless men.

well ill leave u to keep knocking ur heads against a brick wall. i have said enough on this topic. time and testing will demonstrate once more that my assertions are correct.

reply to post by kmb08753


Did they cut off the heads of all of them at the same time? If not, perhaps it is possible that they communicate with each other and were able to convey what was learned? This could apply to the bird tearing off the tops of the milk jugs as well. Just because we don't understand how things communicate doesn't mean that they do not communicate.