Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ PhotoReading, Memory Optimizer Bits of info translated into words

Does anyone know exactly how many letters or words equals 1 bit of information?

10 bits of information is how many letters?

How does someone come to actually say the conscious mind can only handle a certain # of bits at a time. Certainly it has to be different for everyone.

I think you are referring to the comment usually made that the conscious mind is only capable of handling 7 bits of information plus or minus 2. Whereas the inner mind is capable of processing 20,000 bits of information at any one time.

Another term for this is multitasking. An example. Listening(1) and writing(2) at the same time, watching(3) something funny happening in another part of the classroom, while trying to comprehend (4)what the teacher is talking about and deciding(5) what is important and what is not is about what is being said, while being irritated(6) by the quality of the aircondioning in the room while making a mental note(7) of what you need to study. May be what you are doing consciously and that is most likely the the limit of what the conscious mind is aware of at the time. This roughly represents the 7 bits of information that your conscious mind is noticing while you are learning.

Meanwhile you inner mind is noticing which marker the lecturer used to write/draw on the board, what kind of floor the classroom has, the size of the room, what kind of chairs you are sitting on, the colour of the walls, where everyone is sitting, who's in long sleeves who's in short, what the lecturer is wearing, the noise that the airconditioner is making, the noises flitering in from outside the classroom, how well your shoes are tied, which sock is further down than the other on your leg, when its time to take your next breath, keeping the blood flowing maintaining your optimal body temperature, shifting position of your body so that blood circulates and so on ... all this information is already known/noticed and acted on by your inner mind. As soon as you focus on any of that with the conscious mind it drops something to concentrate on it.

If you were able to focus on all that consciously you would never have any problem taking down in notes everything the lecturer says, since even the act of note taking, causes distractions (eg the thought 'how do you spell that? and 'slow down I can't right that fast'), you just forget about about the airconditioning and for now won't think about it.

General observation and laboritory testing is the source of information to the fact that the inner mind is doing much more than the conscious mind.

The term 'bits of information' is not really an exact measurement when refering to the functioning of the mind. It is intended to describe the fact that the conscious mind can only focus on or do only so many things/task at once... some task take more focus than others so sometimes we can concentrate on more and other time we have to narrow our focus and avoid distractions.

I think the reason 'bits' is the favoured term is because our brain is often likened to a computer and it's functioning is easier to explain when we compare it to a computer.

Alex

I thought it could be measured in a "matrix" type way.

NLP throws around the "7 plus or minus 2" allot and I was wondering if there was a scientific measurement for the word "bit" or if it was just a metaphor.

My sister in law is an extrememly fast reader and her and her roomate and I split the cost of the PR course back in March and I as of lately have only been reading sales brochures and company documents, she's into novels and her roomate is in college collectively we've not gotten faster at reading. She read the first Lord of the Rings book in 3 hours which translates to about 800 words per minute.

I graduated in May and could finally lay my non pleasure reading to rest and I desperately want to read all these novels I've got laying around. I've never looked at any sort of speedreading thing seriously until I learned about the "rapid reading." I was wondering if "7 plus or minus 2" actually translated into words per minute.

You do realize, a much more appropriate member name for you would be "TurboMarkP4WPM"

TurboMarkP 4WPM

I think the "4WPM" fits, on some days. Depends on if "Re-Lax" counts as 1 word or 2.