Data Storage of the Human Mind

 Kind of a think piece, that was prompted by the Black Mirror Episode :‘The Entire History of You’ (S1, E3) where you upload your entire memory to a computer, and how we don't think its likely to do that based on several factors. Bandwidth and Memory Storage being the main one.. lets deep dive:

Can we, Should we, store all memories?

The premise here is based on the idea that we upload a complete copy of all memories, from each person, top some huge database, to be accessible by your online "Avatar" which continues to live in the virtual space. Its a huge chunk of memory, and the passing back and forth of information, would require huge quantum computers, for each person! 

Consider your life, consider a sliver of your life, your classroom at school, what can you remember of that classroom? the desk? the chair? maybe the blackboard? mostly our conscious access to memories are limited. BUT when we look at a photo, we recall so many interesting points about that classroom, based on the triggers of the photo.

How could we store this? If we stored a 3D representational version of that classroom, and when our 'uploaded' Avatar of ourself wants to access that memory, how do we classify which part of that 3D 'memory' should be accessed? the desk? the chair? the blackboard?

What about the scratch in the desk? if you had a vague memory of creating a scratch or not, you recall grinding your pen into the desk to draw a line, not straight because the wood of the desk caused your pen to go another way. Then when you realised the blue line the pen made, incriminates you as the perpetrator of this crime, you use your rulers edge to scratch out the blue, but now the scratch is huge.

What if you did this, so often, you cannot recall a specific incident of doing this? just the vague idea that you did? what if my description, called up a memory, but its not YOU doing it, it was something you pieced together from TV shows, other memories, and seeing the results.. but its so long ago, you can't remember if it was a memory or not. 

How does this Avatar, access specifically the information which is true, and also what is false, and blur the line? arbitrarily? randomly? our personalities are made up of what we believe to be true about ourselves. obviously it can't be random all the time, but if its random the first time, then it becomes coded in as 'truth' for all future references, our Avatar would remember that he/she was a destructive little child, and as an adult would have less reserve when a situation comes up to be destructive to solve a problem.

This is how human brains already work. We are, what we think we are, not the truth, the perception of truth. and interestingly, we can reprogram it all if we have the willpower. but that's another subject.

Lets go back to this classroom.

What about the rest of the class? If the 3D space of that classroom is being stored, not just once, but for each second of the day that the student is IN the classroom, pre table scratch, and post table scratch, summer, winter, spring, autumn, cold, hot, windy, air-con on, or off, the cold of the metal, the warmth of wood.. all these points are stored for each person.. times 20 students in the class?

Wouldn't that be redundant? what about each year of students? the room doesn't change THAT much, so in 20 years, we'd have 400 'memories' of that classroom alone. 8 hours x 5 days x 40 weeks of '3D footage'

My brother asked me a question, where if you stored all the physics in a machine, a record of all matter, if each 'byte' of info was physically the size of 1mm (its much smaller, but for this argument) the size of the computer would need to be bigger than each, for each second.

the storage of data of that 1mm of information, stored on a harddrive that was itself 1mm, would be the size of earth, to store a 'copy' of the size of earth. 

You would have to 'cheat' somewhere, for the sake of storage.

The classroom in memory, can't be an exact replica, lets take a guess, if 1m x 1m wall, could be stored in a 1mm or smaller sized in information, it would only allow for 11 days storage of its information.. 20 years? needs a Harddrive the size of Australia!

And we need 400 copies of it?

Why store it at all? surely you could 'create' the classroom object when it is first created (by the builders memories) and apply a time modifier to it over 20 years, and then when each 'avatar' access's that memory, they access that instance x modifier. once.. not 400x, and, you don't need to store the whole thing, just the 'surface' of each part, with time stamp modifiers for changes.. Timmy chipped off some paint when he was standing in the corner, grab Timmy's memory, stamp it, store results, now when Jane is in the corner, she has access to that 'chipped' version as her memory.

Now.. take that one step further.. store a virtual version of the planet, all the desks, windows, scratches, chips, etc, as it happened. time stamped, and all the Virtual Avatars will access that single 'source' when they need to access memories..

Now.. when we upload everyone that currently lives.. from birth to death, we have a record of all events, and after we die, our Avatar lives on, but we can access the whole life, have a 'judge' determine if we were good or not, and adjust the Avatars existence based on that life.

Maybe a 2nd and 3rd world exists in the Harddrive in the next room, one called Heaven, one called Hell?

Just a random thought, while I was on the bus this morning.