There are many theories for this, among which, that seven (like three, another sacred number) is a prime number, indivisible; that our daily lives are organized around a seven-day week; and that seven is the limit to the amount of information we can process and remember at one time. This last theory was developed by George Miller, the Princeton cognitive psychologist, in 1956 in his much referenced article, The Magical Number Seven Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information. Joshua Foer espouses Miller’s theory in his new book, “Moonwalking with Einstein.”  He writes, “Like a computer, our ability to operate in the world is limited by the amount of information we can juggle at one time.  Unless we repeat things over and over, they tend to slip from our grasp. Everyone knows our working memory stinks.  Miller’s paper explained that it stinks within very specific parameters.”  (see link)

topics: culture