Under that view the stereotypical forgetful professor isn’t brilliant because he has a lot of memory free to think with at any time, but because he has had a lot of practice doing the most with a small memory. These seem experimentally distinguishable.
Not necessarily. This post only argues that the absolute ability of memory is highly limited, so in general, the ability of humans to solve complex tasks comes from being very clever with the small amount of memory we have. (Although, is ‘memory’ the right term for ‘the ability to think about many things at once’?) I’m very confident this is true.
Comparative ability (i.e., differences between different humans) could still be due to memory, and I’m not confident either way. Although my impression from talking to professors does suggest that it’s better internal representations, I think.
Not necessarily. This post only argues that the absolute ability of memory is highly limited, so in general, the ability of humans to solve complex tasks comes from being very clever with the small amount of memory we have. (Although, is ‘memory’ the right term for ‘the ability to think about many things at once’?) I’m very confident this is true.
Comparative ability (i.e., differences between different humans) could still be due to memory, and I’m not confident either way. Although my impression from talking to professors does suggest that it’s better internal representations, I think.