Ok first of all youngprer, how would reading books by a theoretical physicist help me learn about the brain?
This was information taken from pyschologists/authors, credible people, not just made up by me.
Stephen Hawking said, in his book A Brief History of Time, the estimate for the amount of particles in the universe is around 100, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000.
Even for the brain...this is kind of a big number.
Reading books about physics will actually tell you about the brain by telling you what we know to be possible, or what we believe to be impossible.
I am not claiming you made it up. It sounds interesting. If you have the time, could you track down the ones making the claim?
EDIT: On second thought, logic tells me that in order for that to be true, let us imagine there is only a single human being alive. Their neurons would have to be tiny, tiny neurons in order for the total number of connections to surpass total atoms in the universe. Cell size would have be remarkably small, and that's just an intuitive sort of estimate!
Second, what are you even disagreeing with? I'm saying the brain has virtually unlimited storage, so are you.
I was not aware I was communicating ineffectively. I agree that the brain has "virtually unlimited storage." I was only disagreeing that there are a similar number of connections in the brain to the number of atoms in the universe, especially if we're talking about the inflationary model (which currently seems pretty credible to many physicists), where atoms and other sorts of particles can be created or put together from energy.
Third, if you can put a limit on matter, you can put a limit on electricity, and if it's electrochemical, the limit on the chemical would effect this as well, not just the "unlimited" electricity, that's just logical reasoning in itself/
In the sense that all matter is created from energy, and that electrical charge can theoretically be imagined to be at unlimited amplitudes - I do not imagine there is a limit on
the power of electricity. Knowing whether or not there is likely involves the same sort of process to what might eventually happen to successfully implement nuclear fusion. We have simply yet to understand certain things about the universe.
For instance, we know that there is such a thing as electricity, or gravity, but we do not know exactly
why these things exist. If we could answer that question, we could probably figure out the secret to real anti-gravity! (OMG, that would be so AWESOME).
I think that electricity still remains a very mysterious thing. We know that electricity in the body and brain is limited in terms of amounts of amplitudes, but I think the more important detail is the limit of chemical substances in conductivity, and that's kind of the point I was getting at. The power of the brain lies its neural net, not the physical structures.
Fourth, the side effects can be psychological. It's something new, you're reaching a new state of consciousness and performing a new task on it as well.
This would definitely fall into the category of a sensory illusion, which I stated. Sensory illusions can be created by the natural cognitive mechanisms of perception or they can also indeed be purely psychological, and subjective creations all their own.
Fifth, "wicked neurological activity" is happening all the time. Everything you process is processed in the neurological system, be it the brain or spinal cord, or whatever. All the feelings, non-conscious activity such as the heartbeat, digestion, even seeing and hearing things. That's already billions of pieces of information, reading a book is no different from looking around a room when photoreading. It's millions of pieces of information being processed at once.
I suppose that in asserting that there is "wicked neurological activity" I might want to rephrase that a little more accurately. Of course, what I would rephrase it with, I'm not certain. Neurological activity can be defined as many different things, and I do not think it is one single process that is actually becoming active on its own without the involvement of the other processes during PhotoReading.
Does your brain necessarily process advanced concepts regarding your surroundings? Some would argue that it does, but most often it would appear that we process our surroundings for the purposes of being within those surroundings. We might remember where a chair or couch is so that we do not run into it. But going back to my buddy Stephen Hawking - do you think my brain is looking at the symbols (language) on those pages the same way? I highly doubt it.
True cognition is likely taking place behind the curtain, and with the added conscious benefit of purpose - your mind is able to arrange the information in a particular way more suitable to you (and not just its natural exploratory whims).
I hope this helps to clarify what I was attempting to convey.