On Intelligence: How a New Understanding of the Brain Will Lead to the Creation of Truly Intelligent Machines

by Jeff Hawkins

It is the ability to make predictions about the future that is the crux of intelligence.

An auto-associative memory system is one that can recall complete patterns when given only partial or distorted inputs.

We call this chain of memories thought, and although its path is not deterministic, we are not fully in control of it either.

The three properties of cortical memory discussed in this chapter (storing sequences, auto-associative recall, and invariant representations) are necessary ingredients to predict the future based on memories of the past. In the next chapter I propose that making predictions is the essence of intelligence.

Our brains use stored memories to constantly make predictions about everything we see, feel, and hear.

Prediction is so pervasive that what we “perceive”—that is, how the world appears to us—does not come solely from our senses. What we perceive is a combination of what we sense and of our brains’ memory-derived predictions.

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 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.

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 back part of the cortex contains the sections where the eyes, ears, and touch inputs arrive. It is where sensory perception largely occurs. The front part contains regions of cortex that are involved in highlevel planning and thought. It also contains the motor cortex, the section of brain most responsible for moving muscles and therefore creating behavior.

Predictability is the very definition of reality.

when axons leave layer 6 to travel to other destinations, they are encased in a white fatty substance called myelin.

Brains have inhibitory cells that do just this. They strongly inhibit other neurons in a neighborhood of cortex, effectively allowing one winner.

As strange as it sounds, when your own behavior is involved, your predictions not only precede sensation, they determine sensation.

“Doing” by thinking, the parallel unfolding of perception and motor behavior, is the essence of what is called goal-oriented behavior. Goal-oriented behavior is the holy grail of robotics. It is built into the fabric of the cortex.

We can break consciousness into two major categories. One is similar to self-awareness—the everyday notion of being conscious. This is relatively easy to understand. The second is qualia—the idea that feelings associated with sensation are somehow independent of sensory input. Qualia is the harder part.

If my theory of intelligence is right, we cannot rid people of their propensity to think in stereotypes, because stereotypes are how the cortex works. Stereotyping is an inherent feature of the brain.