On the topic of brain functionality. When I was a kid I had a theory that perhaps we could better understand the spirit by applying some basic physics to the brain. Consider, according to most scientists, all memory, logic, sensory, behavioral capacity, etc. is stored in the brain via chemical reactions and neural pathways (synapses). Interestingly, the mass of the brain does not seem to directly correlate to it’s capabilities/capacity. In fact, I’ve heard that through hypnosis (*note – I’m not promoting hypnosis), nearly anyone can recall almost any memory at photographic capacity (but it can also lead to distorted memories via suggestion/imagination etc). Other tests also suggest similar results, by using tachistoscopes to exhibit and test subconscious retention.

Maybe you see what I’m getting at. According to most scientists, the brain should only have a limited capacity of storing memories. This being the case, if we could somehow show that the human brain stores more memories than physically possible; we would have to consider that perhaps our memories are spiritually retained (or to be scientifically P.C., “retained in an alternate dimension”). To give an idea of what I’m talking about, think about our sense of sight. We have roughly 120 million rods (detecting light), 6 million cones (colors), and over a million nerve fibers in one eyeball, maintaining constant communication with the brain for over half your lifetime. In other words, in the digital world, we could translate that to about a 2550 x 2550 (pixels) color image overlaying a 11000 x 11000 black/white image, which could be equivalent to over 47 Terra bytes of bitmap imagery data every day (if we sleep 9 hours a day – and I’m not sure if our minds have an equivalent to digital compression). Now add in the other senses and include ideas/imagination, feelings, sounds (sound recognition), tastes/smells, feeling (textures), dreams, etc. A truly photographic mind may hold over three million Terra bytes of information (loosely estimated) in a lifetime, or about 600 million DVD’s. As for the rest of us, we’re looking at about 5 Megabytes (just kidding). Unfortunately, we really don’t know how our minds store data; but as you can imagine, just as any hard disk or DVD, the storage capacity/memory would have to be limited due to the physical mass. If we can prove that our memory capacities exceed the total synapses / chemical reactions by an impossible ratio, then we have to conclude that our memories are only partially dependent on the brain.

By the way, in case you’re curious about the memory capacity of the human mind, you may want to do some research on Kim Peek (the man who “Rain Man” was based on). Kim is considered a genius in about 15 subjects and has the ability to remember everything he reads and hears (from even when he was only 1 year old). He knows almost 10,000 books (mostly historical/factual), not including maps (of most of the world), phone books, newspapers, etc.