[icedchai]

It's not literally "infinite", you are right. And compression is probably the wrong term. Parts of my early memories are gone: literally gone, no where to be found. It feels like exponential decay the further you go back. Certainly it doesn't decay to nothing, but maybe it's close enough on a very long time scale. I don't know... how do others perceive their distant memories?

[leafboi]

Compression is the correct term.

Using symbols to represent bigger concepts is a form of compression. The representation/memory of an animal in your mind is done using symbols rather than an actual animal.

This isn't speculation. A animal exists in reality as construction of millions of biological cells each in turn made up of billions of atoms. Depending on how big the animal is it could be more atoms that make up your brain. Therefore, for the animal to exist in your mind as a memory there Must be a form of information compression. You cannot fully hold an actualization of an animal in your mind because it is too big to exist in your mind. Your brain holds symbols of the animal.

What happens with a jpeg is the exact same concept as what happens in your memory. A jpeg is a symbolic representation of the actual picture. It is a form of lossy compression because details from the original picture are lost.

[icedchai]

In some cases, yes, it is compression. What I was referring to was not, really. It's complete absence of detailed memory.

[leafboi]

In all cases memory exists as compression. If the memory is completely absent then we're talking about something that doesn't exist, there's no point.

[icedchai]

Or it may not be completely absent, just consciously. Who knows. Nobody knows exactly how our memory works. It's fun to think about though.

[leafboi]

Except we have a mathematical theory of information, and memory being information we know that it must exists within the bounds of that theory. Hence, memory is compression.

[icedchai]

As I've tried to explain 3 or 4 times, this is not what I'm talking about. Do you understand the difference between data being "deleted" and data being "compressed"? I give up.