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| less than a minute read

How Fast Is The Human Brain?

The human brain is incredibly complex and powerful, but by comparison to the machines we use every day it's not very fast. 

New research from Caltech suggests that our brain processes information at 10 bits per second. By contrast, a standard WiFi connection processes 50 million bits per second. And oddly enough, our body's senses take in approximately a billion bits per second from the environment around us, which is 100 million times faster than our brain can process them. Clearly, it's prioritizing and filtering only what we need to use at any given second. 

It's incredible to think that as advanced and intelligent as humans have become, we're still evolving fairly slowly from “survival mode”. Perhaps this is why we're so reliant on computers to do the heavy processing for us. Or maybe all the sci-fi scenarios of embedding computer chips into our brain will help us process information faster some day. 

No question about it, though: we've come so far yet still have so far we can go. 

Tags

neuroscience, human brain, research, english, highlight

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