Thread: Limited memory forcing humans to become specialists?

Hey.

A person devotes his life to studying, say law. Another one devotes his life to studying a language. If they both study both. They could just be average at both, jack of all trades sortoff. However if they focus on specializing in one field each, they have the potential of becoming best at their area of expertise. The puzzle for me is the following. Is this a TIME restraint, or a physical limit for the human brain to absorb knowledge?

Personally i wanted to learn japanese. However i needed to focus on other things a while and got distracted. To my horror i noticed that not using the language made me forget it very quickly! Luckily it also came back really fast.

When you learn stuff you build connections in your brain right? And if you dont use them they weaken, but dont disappear if im correct?

Should humans therefore (If not particularry gifted) always focus on one occupation? And is memory or time the cause of not being able to be great at everything?

Also if someone happens to have any interesting articles or readings about this stuff it would be great if you could post link to it

Personally i feel you could excel in many fields if you start them ALL at a very early age, but as i am 26 atm, i feel i should only focus on one since im allready in the battle against age.

Originally Posted by Raziell

When you learn stuff you build connections in your brain right? And if you dont use them they weaken, but dont disappear if im correct?

It's not just that, meanwhile the routines you are using strengthen relative to the disused ones. This is the process of myelanation, analogous to insulation on a wire: it focuses and speeds those thoughts which enjoy use, but also makes them difficult to break from the efficient rut. Not surprisingly ADHD kids have "poor" myelination; they think all sorts of things.

Obviously time's a limitation also. But the neurological constraint I wouldn't just call "memory". If you had total indiscriminate memory how could your thoughts have form?