p.1 I am crazy about brains. [JLJ - so are Hollywood zombies.
Just thought I'd mention that.] I want to understand how the brain works, not just from a philosophical perspective, not just
in a general way, but in a detailed nuts and bolts engineering way. My desire is not only to understand what intelligence
is and how the brain works, but how to build machines that work the same way. I want to build truly intelligent machines.
The question of intelligence is the last great terrestrial
frontier of science.
p.2 intelligent machines will arise from a new set of principles about the nature of intelligence.
p.4 It is said that "new ideas" are often old ideas repackaged and reinterpreted.
p.4 "Real intelligence" [Hawkins calls his theories concerning how the brain works "real intelligence",
in order to separate it from the field of "artificial intelligence"] makes the point that before we attempt to build
intelligent machines, we have to first understand how the brain thinks, and there is nothing artificial about that.
Only then can we ask how we can build intelligent machines.
p.6-7 The brain uses vast amounts of memory to create a model of the world. Everything you know and have
learned is stored in this model. The brain uses this memory-based model to make continuous predictions of future events. It
is the ability to make predictions about the future that is the crux of intelligence... My goal is to explain this
new theory of intelligence and how the brain works in a way that anybody will be able to understand.
p.12 The biggest reason I thought computers would not be intelligent is that I understood how computers
worked, down to the level of the transistor physics, and this knowledge gave me a strong intuitive sense that brains
and computers were fundamentally different. I couldn't prove it, but I knew it as much as one can know anything.
Ultimately, I reasoned, AI might lead to useful products, but it wasn't going to build truly intelligent machines.
In contrast, I wanted to understand real intelligence and perception, to study brain physiology
and anatomy... and come up with a broad framework for how the brain worked.
p.86-87 Our brains use stored memories to constantly make predictions about everything we see, feel and
hear... The vast majority of predictions occur outside of awareness... What we perceive is a combination of what we
sense and of our brains' memory-derived predictions.
p.88-89 your brain makes low-level sensory predictions about what it expects to see, hear, and feel at every
given moment, and it does so in parallel... Prediction is not just one of the things your brain does. It is the primary
function of the neocortex, and the foundation of intelligence.
p.92 Prediction is not always exact. Rather, our minds work by making probabilistic predictions
concerning what is about to happen.
p.96 The human brain is more intelligent than that of other animals because it can make predictions
about more abstract kinds of patterns and longer temporal pattern sequences... Notice that our intelligence tests
are in essence prediction tests... Science is itself an exercise in prediction. We advance our knowledge of the world through
a process of hypothesis and testing... Intelligence is measured by the capacity to remember and predict patterns in the world,
including language, mathematics, physical properties of objects, and social situations.
p.99 By comparing the actual sensory input with recalled memory, the animal not only understands
where it is but can see into the future... When our animal finds itself in the same or similar situation, it not
only sees into the future but recalls which behaviors led to that future vision. Thus, memory and prediction allow
an animal to use its existing (old brain) behaviors more intelligently.
p.101 Your neocortex is forming predictions about sensory patterns that allow you to see into the future,
but your palette of available behaviors is pretty much unaffected.
p.104-105 intelligence and understanding started as a memory system that fed predictions into the sensory
stream. These predictions are the essence of understanding. To know something means that you can make predictions
about it... Prediction, not behavior,
is the proof of intelligence.
p.234-235 With this book, I hope to entice
young engineers and scientists to study the cortex, adopt the memory-prediction framework, and build intelligent machines...I
am suggesting we now have a new, more promising path to follow. If... this book motivates you to work on this technology
- to build the first truly intelligent machines, to help start an industry - I encourage you to do so. [JLJ - Ok,
let's get started...]
