[comp.ai] A few million gigabytes at 100Hz

markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark William Hopkins) (12/01/90)

In article <11941@hubcap.clemson.edu> svissag@hubcap.clemson.edu (Steve L Vissage II) writes:
to the effect: "How much information can the brain store?"

With about 100 billion neurons, each with about 10,000 connections there's
about 1000 TRILLION synapses.  It's commonly assumed that the information the
brain holds is stored in the synapses, so that would lead to about the same
number of floating point numbers (as a rough estimate): thus maybe a few
million gigabytes of storage capacity.

The most complex neural net hardware has about a million cells each with a
fan-out of about 100 ... amounting to 100,000,000 floating point numbers,
or about a gigabyte: 1/1000000 the capacity of the brain.

But...

In article <7492@hub.ucsb.edu> 6600dt@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (Dave Goggin) writes:
adds to the question:
>What is the speed (in MHz, or other units) that the brain runs at ...

Try 100 Hz, about 1/1000000 the frequency (and effective bandwidth) of
electronic signals.

So draw your own conclusions...