But what you could use such a chip for would be to store every thought and every experience you ever have. Then if you die and the chip is recoverable, you can effectively be “re-lifed” and pick up where you left off. People would never really die.

This is the main theme that the ‘Commonwealth’ SF novels by Peter F. Hamilton are built on. These novels are great space opera and I would recommend them to all SF readers. See:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Commonwealth_Saga

I have a feeling there will always be a time lag involved with that, and involved in deciding where to go in terms of seeking out information.

Having an internal digital assistant might speed some things up but not necessarily everything.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9l6VPpDublg#at=79

Also on topic, I remembered that one of my friends from the former Soviet Union took part in an experimental accelerated learning program where they started out by learning how to remember everything they did that day. My friend told me that the people who quit the program said they did so because they realized that most of their day was spent doing NOTHING. The program was stopped by the government before it got finished because the government was not able to figure out/was scared by students only having to take 6 months to finish a 4 year University program.

So, I think with this type of cognitive enhancement, the above needs to be taken into account. It’s like…well, I really like Buddhism and what it teaches, but I don’t think a pill can be taken or some kind of machine can be made so that the fruits of Buddhism can be achieved…Buddhism has to be learned and experienced, mistakes made, etc etc.

It’s like with poverty, I think it can be ‘solved’, but not with a pill but with a radical restructuring of our society (with all of us being involved and not just our policy makers).

Have you been wondering certain things regarding the Brainetics Review Secrets exposed from the Human Calculator, Mike Byster? His Brainetics program include five DVDs, a Parents’ Guide book, a Playbook, Credit cards and Flash Cards is essential to actually comprehend the Brainetics secrets.

I think that my concern did not come across clearly (my fault, not yours), so let me try again. I completely understand that aping human neurobiology is not the objective of computer design. But in the the context of the article, we are talking about a brain having access to unprecedented amounts of information – to use Kyle’s words, ‘everything, always, and instantly’.

The issue is this: if one has perfect recall of everything, can a brain use the information? It seems that the current mechanistic workings of the brain are limited to some degree, and includes a robust amount of forgetting. Rather than being a handicap, the system as currently construed allows for integration and, dare I say it, the unity of conscious thought. The challenge is knowing what happens when the database gets much much larger: does the integrative action break down, thereby paradoxically reducing rather than enhancing cognitive function? It is not that I am against having access to more information, but I have no interest in doing so if it is not going to improve matters. Much of the discussion of increasing memory seems to assume, rather glibly, that more is better, and much more is much better. What I am trying to suggest here is that there is a body of work in neurobiology which reasonably questions this premise.

This is at once a serious engineering issue, an intriguing insight into the (presumed) adaptive advantages of the organization of our brains at present, and an insight with philosophical implications for the origins of consciousness and unity of thought.

I’m not sure I agree. One of the great, under-appreciated strengths of current computer design is that they do not merely attempt to ape human beings. They are complementary to us, not supplementary.

Of course this leads to some problems too. “Why doesn’t the machine understand what I mean?” and so forth. However computers buttress human beings where we do poorly (perfect retention of facts, potentially forever) while themselves being poor where we are strong (analysis, correlation, creativity).

However for the most part computers are non-threatening because they are simultaneously alien and useful.

@15 Paul,

I think you are going a very large step beyond the article, into a massive shared memory system. Potentially very powerful and radical. It’s Borg-like aspects cannot be ignored though. This is likely to involve a huge shift into a shared consciousness with it’s attendant risks of loss of individuality.

Here is an example that I use when explaining this to our graduate students: stop reading for a moment, and think about one of your elementary school teachers. It doesn’t matter which one, just choose one.

When you are finished recalling something (anything) about that teacher, read the next paragraph.

Right now, that memory is no longer stable. [Sorry, I know, I am messing with your brain. And worse, I am doing so deliberately.]

When you go to sleep tonight, you will reconsolidate that memory of your teacher. But it will be tied, loosely or strongly, to this discussion about memory consolidation. The more vividly you incorporate my comments, the stronger the connection. If you think about either the teacher or memory consolidation some weeks from now, there is a probability (not 100%, but greater than zero) that you will recall the other half of the equation. And if you do, that will induce another round of memory lability and reconsolidation, probably increasing the strength of the connection between the two again. And so on.

As one meanders through life, some memories become strengthened while others fade into the background noise. It is likely that there will always be some molecular footprints for even the faintest of these, but their connections to current events is too weak to allow their recall. For example, if you are over 35, you probably have a hard time recalling the names of everyone in your third grade class. And frankly, why would you want to. Unless they are relevant to your existence today, in which case you would recall their names easily.

As my example of third grade classmates illustrates, the process is adaptive to the real world in which we live. On the other hand, total recall is not. The fact is that we already have access to more ‘data’ than ever before in history. The challenge is not knowing things, but rather sorting through them to arrive at interesting and meaningful connections. It is not the case that a computer could not be designed to do that – there are many valuable algorithms out there – google’s search strategy comes to mind – but the advantages of having total recall of everything I have seen, felt, or heard in my life seems to me to be oversold. Perfect recall maybe the wrong thing to pursue.