Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
Уровень B2· 714 слов
Memories are biological magic that enable you to experience bygone moments – over and over. With them, your mind can encode, store and retrieve information about the world and yourself.
But memories are not static like photos. Like dioramas made from wax, each time they’re under the spotlight of your attention they can melt and change a tiny bit.
Which is a bit concerning because they are a huge part of what makes you, you. They are the personal lore a lot of your identity is based on – and the basis for your decisions about your future.
What does it mean if they change? And more fundamentally… What IS a memory? How is a moment in time stored in squishy meat?
Your Brain is Weird Madness The human brain is the most complex thing in the universe, so we need to simplify quite a bit.
Scientific models work but are not a perfect reflection of reality. It's a bit like talking about elementary particles.
But in a nutshell, what makes you think and feel is a complex system of about 86 billion neurons. Extremely complex electrochemical root systems, sending and receiving signals through synapses – tiny gaps between cells, where an electrical signal is converted into chemicals,
bridges the distance, is received and converted into electricity again. This is how neurons talk to each other.
And it's a busy conversation because a typical neuron is connected with up to 10,000 others. Together they’re a network of hundreds of trillions of connections.
A hundred times more than galaxies in the observable universe. From these connections the magic of your existence emerges.
To create purpose in this chaos some connections need to grow stronger. Whenever two neurons fire at the same time their synapses change and their connection gets stronger.
They become buddies if you want, and when their buddy calls they join in. If we zoom out, patterns emerge.
