A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence

by Jeff Hawkins

It took years for us to deduce that reference frames exist throughout the neocortex, but in hindsight, we could have understood this a long time ago with a simple observation. Right now, I am sitting in a small lounge area of Numenta’s office. Near me are three comfortable chairs similar to the one I am sitting in. Beyond the chairs are several freestanding desks. Beyond the desks, I see the old county courthouse across the street. Light from these objects enters my eyes and is projected onto the retina. Cells in the retina convert light into spikes. This is where vision starts, at the back of the eye. Why, then, do we not perceive objects as being in the eye? If the chairs, desks, and courthouse are imaged next to each other on my retina, how is it that I perceive them to be at different distances and different locations? Similarly, if I hear a car approaching, why do I perceive the car as one hundred feet away to my right and not in my ear, where the sound actually is? This simple observation, that we perceive objects as being somewhere—not in our eyes and ears, but at some location out in the world—tells us that the brain must have neurons whose activity represents the location of every object that we perceive.