The delta between memory and assisted memory is getting smaller over time, though. My memory of every paper I ever wrote for school and for my first day job is pretty slim. Every word I've written since that is accessible with about ten seconds of reflection and Google. Much of the important stuff is accessible on my iPad, too. (The additional accessibility of it makes it easier to re-read, which keeps it in active memory, too.)

I'm in paperwork-filing mode right now for immigration. I've done it before, largely backed by paper notes. It is stressful, highly technical, and not my field. This time, I'm backed by Dropbox and my iPad. I have literally asked for a moment during discussions with clerks at town hall and then read sentences from the relevant Ministry of Justice regulations directly to them. ("I need a document proving that I have properly executed my duty to pay all forms of tax for last year, including that from $YOUR_OFFICE. Can you help me out with that? No? OK, let's see, you have a form, it is called a... one minute... Certification Of Tax Payment for City And Prefectural Taxes. I'd like to apply for that. It will cost me 250 yen, apparently. No ma'am, I believe it is quite likely you will find that form if you look. Yes ma'am, that is the one, thank you.")

Do I have an encyclopedic command of obscure regulations written by a foreign government in my third language? No. But the system of myself and my technological crutches strongly gives the appearance of that.

Edited to add: If it weren't obvious, I find this Really Freaking Useful, because it is saving me a couple thousand dollars on hiring a specialist whose chief professional responsibility is knowing that a) I need that document to complete the particular procedure I'm in and b) the quickest way to extract it from City Hall. Previously, the solution set was a) pay up, b) spend weeks researching the issue and playing ping-pong around four offices (and you're the ball), or c) buy plane tickets prior to being deported.

Is this because you have a business, or has the process gotten more complicated? I've never had much trouble with Japanese immigration, although the last couple times I didn't need to do anything myself.

Short version: Japan is optimized for salarymen.

Let's not go around throwing words like 'real world' around so casually, less you wish your mind to exist in a fantasy plane of existence. And if you want to get silly about it, typing and waiting is just neuron activation, and I imagine there is plenty of firing and waiting going on when we remember.

If you wish to define human memory as only the information retrieval within our own brain, then there is no argument against your case. However, it raises other questions such as exactly where we set the distinction. Does it mean that the memory must be stored in the biological structure of the brain (meaning whatever we are born with), or just whatever is physically inside our head (maybe one day we can graft memory boosters in there).

And what if somehow we train our memories/brains and some external system to be able to cue off each other? Perhaps some sort of direct neural interface where a partial memory and trigger an external stimulus and that then triggers the full memory faster (better?). Then does the external system become an extension of human memory? It may not increase our information storage capacity, but it would improve recall.

Anyhow, it's all fun semantics and fantasy at this point. One day...

Well yes.. If you think of Google as tape libraries[1] and your brain as RAM, then the difference is many orders of magnitude. Brain memory boosters would be like having SSDs on thunderbolt (possible in computing, not in brain surgery). It is right to say words like real world, more so than words like one day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertiary_storage#Tertiary_stora...