Jeff Hawkins is a guy who is crazy about brains. Let's hear what
the inventor of the PalmPilot has to say about brains in general. This guy created a whole research institute (the Redwood
Neuroscience Institute) because he was curious.
p.1"I am crazy about brains. 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."
Hawkins predicts that the understanding of the brain in general will allow us to create a new
class of intelligent machines.
p.2"intelligent machines will arise from a new set of principles about the nature of intelligence."
Some of Hawkins' ideas are not new, but most ideas in science are borrowed from others and reinterpreted.
p.4"It is said that 'new ideas' are often old ideas repackaged and reinterpreted."
Hawkins separates his ideas from artificial intelligence, because he believes that his
ideas are based on how the brain actually works, not just the (possibly artificial) external behavior with the appearance of
intelligence.
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."
Hawkins' theory is that it is the brain's ability to make predictions (about what might happen in
the future) that is the core of intelligence.
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."
Computers could not be truly intelligent, Hawkins thinks, because they could not make predictions
about their environment.
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."
For Hawkins perception is part sensation and part prediction, based on stored
memories. The combination of the two creates understanding.
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."
Hawkins is fascinated by the neocortex, the part of our brain that he claims makes predictions
about the future.
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."
The predictions made by our brain are obviously not prefect, but their reliability comes from the
estimated probabilities that certain events will occur. This would explain such simple concepts as intuition.
p.92"Prediction is not always exact. Rather, our minds work by making probabilistic predictions
concerning what is about to happen."
The human brain (compared to the animal brain) can make more abstract predictions, and can predict
longer sequences of actions.
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."
The ability to make predictions can give an intelligent entity the apparent ability to see
into the future. This is actually the ability to predict what is likely to happen in the future, based on a model of
the world created in part by previous experiences. It would seem that the recognition of cues present in the environment lead
to these predictions.
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."
We might be able to predict the future to some degree with our brain, but we acquire no
super-human abilities to deal with it. We still have to use our muscles to flee from danger or our language skills to communicate
with others in our environment.
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."
To know something is to be able to make predictions about the behavior of a thing, or to be
able to use it to accomplish an objective. Our ability to predict how something behaves is likely based on a model that
we construct of behavior - including interaction with other 'things' in the environment.
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."
Hawkins hopes that others will use his ideas to build truly intelligent machines. Let's not disappoint
him.
p.234-235"With this book, I hope to entice young engineers and scientists to study the [brain] 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."
