I don’t always forget things. However, this semester has been more challenging than usual for the old ramen noodle mass I call my brain.
To be fair, this noodle is almost 22 years old. Even the putrescent sodium seasoning that Maruchan conveniently includes in the package can only go so far — and as much as I love the cost, price and affordability of ramen noodles, I don’t think even I would eat demi-pasta that is pushing two decades old.
From this introduction, you might think that my noodle is, indeed, quite far gone. Bear with me.
I’ve been wondering lately about the finite capabilities of the human brain. My laptop computer can hold around 200 gigabytes (GB) of data. So how many GB is my brain capable of storing?
If you look at my track record this semester, it might lead an analytical observer to assume I have “maxed out” my capacity. For example, I scheduled a Constitution Quiz in the testing lab and then completely forgot to go. I ordered Papa John’s for delivery and then was surprised 25 minutes later when someone knocked on my door. There are eight student writers who work for this newspaper, and their names are still very much a mystery to me.
I’m afraid I have never been more forgetful in my young adult life than I am now.
Yet the human noodle is a strange thing. Because despite evidence to the contrary, I have also never been more knowledgeable. I can rap “Satisfied” from Hamilton without missing a single Schuyler sister syllable. I can tell you the names and style classifications of more fonts than you even knew existed. I can describe — in no small detail — the laws of the Trade Federation and the manipulation that led to senatorial anarchy in Star Wars Episode I (I’m a millennial, I have nothing against Episodes I–III).
Is it possible that my brain is so full of “garbage” that I simply have no room for new material? I want this to be the case. If my noodle is simply “maxed out,” then I am certainly not losing my memory or proving myself incapable of juggling adult responsibilities (i.e., doing more than one thing at a time).
Unfortunately, according to a Feb. 18 article in Live Science, this in-house theory falls flat.
“The human brain’s memory could store the entire Internet,” the headline reads, in a nice Helvetica Neue font. Writer Tia Ghose continues with, “Researchers discovered that, unlike a classical computer that codes information as 0s and 1s, a brain cell uses 26 different ways to code its ‘bits.’ They calculated that the brain could store 1 petabyte (or a quadrillion bytes) of information.”
That’s a lot of GB. If the text had not been laid out in such a pleasant Cambria typeface, I would have been most discouraged.
“What’s more,” Ghose said, “the human brain can store this mind-boggling amount of information while sipping just enough power to run a dim light bulb.”
I clearly have no excuse. The limitations are nonexistent — which means I am just a forgetful old man with a dilapidated noodle for a brain.
All this to say, don’t ask me hard questions. Don’t ask me what street I live on, or when my birthday is, or what I’ve learned in American National Government … unless the answer can be found in the Hamilton soundtrack. Then I’ve got you, fam. Because I’ve been reading “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine.
