[ExI] how large is a human mind?

[ablainey at aol.com]

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From: Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>>For example, the cortical

>recognizers for dogs are most likely shared by everybody who has seen
>enough dogs, and these could be replaced in a compressed version of
>the individual with links to reference dog recognizers

 I wouldn't agree. While we both know what "dogs" are and can converse meaningfully about dogs, the personal experiences and subsequent neural pathways that have been constructed in order to create the Dog recognisers will be very different. 1+1+1=3 and  8-5=3 we can both talk about 3 but how we get there is totally different and in this case, also hidden from us. All we know is that we both understand 3 as a symbol for something.

A silly related example. During the xmas ordeal I was subjected to the usual family game of charades where Mrs Blainey was trying to mime "steering wheel". Simultaneously myself and offspring #3 shouted "Milking a cow" at which point everyone laughed and couldn't understand how either of us let alone both of us could see it.
In context my take on that is that our reconisers are sometimes similarly unique due to genetics but often incredibly different to other people. If you are talking generics you could perhaps reduce to some kind of average recogniser?? but it would lose the individuality of the mind. 
So an average storage value + ?% allowing for individual difference may be sufficient for each recogniser?
Then you have the problem that the number of recognisers from person to person would be very different.


Im also not sure how much compression you could apply if any? I personally believe the brain already compresses data so think the lowest you could safely go would be attributing x number of bytes per neuron. Which should give your normal bell curve for min/max data storage limits for any member of the populous. So (average brain volume)/(average neuron count per cc). Then from that derive some arbitrary data volume needed per cc. Apply min/max threshold and out pops a total figure in TB.

 
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