Why Do Memories Fade?
This is the text version of the interactive 3D documentary. 한국어
Contents · Chapter 4 Erase and rebuild, every day
Never forget, and you forget everything
A network that never erases collapses all at once
Day 59: all gone
Key ideaNever erase, and you lose everything at once
This time we store one memory a day in the network, and never erase anything. Each dot on the spiral is a day, and bright dots are memories that can be recalled now. The count climbs to 31, and by day 59 not one is left. Not only the new ones vanish — the old ones collapse all at once too.
Why?When too many pictures pile up on every link, none of them can make a clear valley. Like a bowl that overflows if you keep pouring, this network has a limit. Go past it, and you lose not some but all of it.
Go furtherThis network (256 dots) can hold about one-seventh as many pictures as it has dots — in the thirties. Physicists worked out the limit of networks like this in 1985. A human brain is far bigger, but it cannot hold endlessly.
View in 3D →Read more: Wikipedia: Hopfield network