• Question: Will there ever be a point where the human brain just cant handle anymore knowledge?

    Asked by picklez to Fiona, Jane, Joanna, Michelle, William on 18 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Michelle Murphy

      Michelle Murphy answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      No I think the brain is very clever like that because it has an abilility to learn and deal with knowledge throughout our lives although what we decide to do with that information may differ as we get older.

    • Photo: Joanna Brooks

      Joanna Brooks answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Hey, great question! Yes, in fact this is common when people get very stressed. Have you ever studied for an exam or worked really hard at school and then found you are totally wiped out? This is because during this time your brain was working really hard to process and store all the information that you were putting into it – in the end the brain gets tired and you need to rest so that all the neurons (cells) can regenerate.

    • Photo: Fiona Randall

      Fiona Randall answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      I hope not! How boring would life be if there was never anything new to learn?

    • Photo: William Davies

      William Davies answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Who knows? There are people out there (called savants) who have incredible skills in certain areas (memorising telephone directories, recalling images, etc.). If you’ve seen the film Rain Man, Raymond is a savant. I think we are just at the beginning of understanding what our brains can actually do

    • Photo: Jane Henry

      Jane Henry answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      There is a limit to how much knowledge a brain can handle and there is already more knowledge in the world than a human can take in. One of the reasons we have been a successful species is that we specialise (knowing stuff about our areas of interest but not lots of other things). Also because we delegate, machines like computers and microscopes help us know things we would not without them. my computer is a great supplement to my memory. There is so much information on the net for example these days it can be overwhelming. There is not enough time in the day to read everything we might like to, we have to choose.

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