[GRLUG] hacked - NOT LINUX

Bob Kline bob.kline at gmail.com
Thu Jul 28 08:57:25 EDT 2011


My mother was at a neurologist a couple
of months ago, and I asked one of the staff
about this.  Apparently short term memory
is related to a couple of small areas of the
brain, whereas long term memory is
distributed more broadly.  This seems to
be why the older, and those with Alzheimer's,
and the rest of us for that matter, can remember
many details of our youth, but maybe not what
we had for lunch. Sleep seems to be the time
when short term memories deemed worth
keeping by the brain are turned in to long term
memories.

I also asked about eidetic memory - so called
photographic memory.  Often talked about,
there apparently is no such thing.  The closest
thing seems to be the memory of an idiot savant
like Kim Peek, who served as the model for
"Rain Man."  The tradeoff is that in return for a
phenomenal memory, you can't do anything
else.  No reasoning for example.

Maybe more than people wanted to know,
but curious all the same.

   -- Bob


On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 8:39 AM, Mike Miller <ironmike52 at hotmail.com> wrote:

>  When I had my brain tumor taken out, I could not remember the first
> number of 4 given to me.  I had short term memory of a gold fish.  At the
> same time I could remember the directions to repair shops in the UP that I
> had delivered to 10 years before.  Memory is a very funny thing.
> Mike
>
> > From: philip.robar at gmail.com
> > Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2011 01:36:12 -0400
> > To: awilliam at whitemice.org; grlug at grlug.org
> > Subject: Re: [GRLUG] hacked
> >
> >
> > On Jul 27, 2011, at 6:23 PM, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
> >
> > > Just to go on record: I dismiss the notion that an adult human can't
> > > trivially memorize a ten character 'random' string as total and
> absolute
> > > bull crap.
> > >
> > > If you have trouble memorizing a ten character string you should
> > > immediately make an appointment with a mental health professional; soon
> > > it will be an inability to memorize eight characters, then six
> > > characters, then you'll get lost finding your way home [which requires
> > > the equivalent of terabytes of information].
> >
> > I'm guessing that you've never studied psychology as the level of
> ignorance of human cognition displayed above is staggering.
> >
> > Nevertheless, yes, with appropriate effort and technique many can
> memorize a random string of 10 characters, but I wouldn't characterize the
> effort as trivial. And 10 characters would be pushing it for much of the
> population.
> >
> > Phil
> >
> >
> > --
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