A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence

by Jeff Hawkins

According to linguists, one of the defining attributes of language is its nested structure. For example, sentences are composed of phrases, phrases are composed of words, and words are composed of letters. Recursion, the ability to repeatedly apply a rule, is another defining attribute. Recursion allows sentences to be constructed with almost unlimited complexity. For example, the simple sentence “Tom asked for more tea” can be extended to “Tom, who works at the auto shop, asked for more tea,” which can be extended to “Tom, who works at the auto shop, the one by the thrift store, asked for more tea.” The exact definition of recursion as it relates to language is debated, but the general idea is not hard to understand. Sentences can be composed of phrases, which can be composed of other phrases, and so on. It has long been argued that nested structure and recursion are key attributes of language. However, nested and recursive structure is not unique to language. In fact, everything in the world is composed this way. Take my coffee cup with the Numenta logo printed on the side. The cup has a nested structure: it consists of a cylinder, a handle, and a logo. The logo consists of a graphic and a word. The graphic is made up of circles and lines, while the word “Numenta” is composed of syllables, and the syllables are themselves made of letters. Objects can also have recursive structure. For example, imagine that the Numenta logo included a picture of a coffee cup, on which was...