Myth: Memory is infinite

Myth

Memory is infinite

Fact

Anyone with basic understanding of physical reality knows this claim is absurd. However, this is just one of a million living claims that are incongruent with pre-school level of common sense. After all, half of Americans still believe the Earth was created by God less than 10,000 years ago. We cannot even hope to memorize Encyclopedia Britannica in a lifetime. Memories are stored in a finite number of states of finite receptors in finite synapses in a finite volume of the human central nervous system. Even worse, storing information long-term is not easy. Most people will find it hard to go beyond 300,000 facts memorized in a lifetime. The other extreme view on memory capacity is a claim that memory overloads easily and that this overload leads to Alzheimer's See: How much knowledge can human brain hold?

Myth busting is an important mission at SuperMemo Guru. We tackle myths about memory, learning, creativity, SuperMemo, and incremental reading. Please write if you want a myth busted or if you disagree