Do You Feel The Need To Format/defrag Your Brain?

[mamer 0]

This is one way to view it, but there are theories that we never actually forget anything, and it's all still in our brain, it just can't be accessed for one reason or another. I guess a better way to explain it would be like... things get put in the recycle bin (where they can be retrieved, but otherwise are "trashed" to an extent).

Your definition is more accurate than my general analogy. I would imagine that those forgotten things are placed in deeper layers of our brain leaving room in the surface layers for other stuff that need to accessed regularly.

Actually the analogy of layers still work in the case of hard disks. I remember that when we used to have hard disks with limited storage capacity there were some software that would double the size of the disk by creating a virtual layer. Also nowadays when you delete data from a disk it's not completely deleted and there are always ways to restore it.

[jlhaslip 4]

Unless something has changed in recent Hard Drives, unless you reformat the drive, when you delete a file, all that happens is the reference to the start position of the file gets eliminated. The full data of the file remains on disk until another file over-writes the same disk space.Kinda like my memory, some files are partially available if you accidentally do a random disk read.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

Unless something has changed in recent Hard Drives, unless you reformat the drive, when you delete a file, all that happens is the reference to the start position of the file gets eliminated. The full data of the file remains on disk until another file over-writes the same disk space.
Kinda like my memory, some files are partially available if you accidentally do a random disk read.

You've got it right. And even after reformatting, a lot of data can still be retrieved (I don't quite understand exactly how it works but the bits can be reverted to how they were prior to the reformat). The only way to really erase data is to overwrite it a number of times (I think it was like 7x, with a mixture of all 0's, all 1's and 0/1's).

[Iniyila 2]

Format ? no never , i have many good memories and of course i have learned lots of useful things that i never will even think about formatting my brain, why should someone want that ? even one single good event in your brain worth it to not to format it. also i think when you have the format option probably you have shift+delete option too ! so if you don't want it just delete it, and as you may know if you do a quick format, lost data can be recovered but if you make a shift+delete and write some good things instead of that sectors then those things you have deleted will never be recovarable and so you will forget them forever.But about defragmenting first lets see the main purpose if this job, when you defrag you h.d.d you put information beside each other so blank spaces can be reached more easily as well as data. so when you do that you will not hear the sound of you hard trying to find a file too much and that is a good thing and also speed of your harddrive access will be increased. so i think if you have deleted many things from your brain then you need a defragment to have more speed for accessing what you have in your brain but anyway is our brain working as a hard drive too ? i mean does it store everything in anywhere it can or it uses a specific algorithm for storing things ?As you know we have short-term memory as well as long-term memory, so every thing you keep in your mind first have to be kept in short-term memory and if you try a little it will go to your long-term memory. i don't think we can see such thing in hard drive. now deleting something stored in short-term memory is so easy just do not think about it a week and it will be deleted. but deleting a file from long-term memory is really hard. this can never be compared with a hard drive because surely if you delete a file from a hard drive and using a software fill exact sectors with some data then your data will not be recoverable but in long-term memory this can not happen.Another difference is that you can store exact amount of information on hard drive but your brain i don't think we have any certain capacity for our brain. so by filling out brain with data we can not say we can delete all data from our brain. so as you grow you will learn more and more things and never have to buy a new external brain to store your learned things in it because your internal brain is full.So there are many differences between our brain and a hard drive, so even if i want to format it i simply can't and this is why it is really hard to forget some bad memories. there is no defrag, no format , no delete for our brain and also there is no system restore either. we live for once and we can not delete anything, so it is better to live somehow that you never need any delete , format or defrag and it is a lot better to live somehow that you never need to wish for a system restore.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

So there are many differences between our brain and a hard drive, so even if i want to format it i simply can't and this is why it is really hard to forget some bad memories. there is no defrag, no format , no delete for our brain and also there is no system restore either. we live for once and we can not delete anything, so it is better to live somehow that you never need any delete , format or defrag and it is a lot better to live somehow that you never need to wish for a system restore.

I get where you're coming from here, but at the end of the day we're all human. Sometimes I think being able to forget bad/wrong things we've done would be more destructive than remembering, as we'd be more likely to do those same wrong things over and over rather than learn from them. The things that bother us the most are the things we learn the most from.

[veightar 0]

Just remembering is one thing and remembering with details is another thing. computer hard drive and memory are imperfect imitation of the human brain. For a computer, a complete disk wipe can be done, where nothing can ever be retrieved, using the appropriate software. You can also delete things you don't have the need for.But for the memory, you don't have the choice between what you want to remember and what you don't. Sometimes, the later even seems more dominant.Hm. For what is worth, we've gotta live with that misery.