6. Information capacity: using brain cells for memory storage

There are between 10¹⁰ and 10¹¹ nerves available in humans for storage and transmission, as well as for any processing to be done.

• Let us start with the assumption that 10¹¹nerves are available for temporary or long-term storage, 1 bit per nerve
• This represents a storage capacity of 100 Gigabits, or 12.5 Gigabytes
• Let us assume that none of the cells are used for processing (thinking), for other senses such as hearing, or for other actions such as grasping with hands, or for speech.

Let us start with the assumption that both visual and action information is stored in 'raw' form, i.e. without compression

• With 0.024 Gigabits per image (frame), and using all of the cells for vision (no action), we can store 4,167 images or frames
• At 18 frames per second, this represents a storage capacity of 3.9 minutes for continuous 'video'
• With 2,688 bits for a muscle-tension specification per action sequence, and using all of the cells for action (no vision), we can store 372,000,000 sequences
• With 1000 muscle-tension updates per second, we require 0.161 Gigabits per minute, and we can store over 103 hours of continuous action
• If we store continuous visual perception and action, we have a capacity for 3.8 minutes
• Vision=25.92 Gigabits/min plus action=0.161 Gigabits/min
• If we store 1 image per second with the action, we have a capacity for 10.4 hours
• Vision=1.44 Gigabits/min plus action=0.161 Gigabits/min

Next, let us assume that a standard (average) action sequence lasts for 10 minutes

• Let us examine how many of these action sequences we could store, assuming that we look only once a second
• With total storage of 10.4 hrs, we could choose between 62 stored 10 min action sequences