On Intelligence

The inventor of the Treo takes time to write about his theories on intelligence. According to him, the many regions of the neocortex all implement the same cortical algorithm; the result of which is in our intelligence. This algorithm performs the following tasks: storage of sequences of patterns, auto-associative recall, conversion of patterns to an invariant form, prediction and two-way heirarchical communication. What he says makes a lot of sense if you think about how you think. This framework is his hypothesis and he is trying to prove it at his own research institute, the Redwood Neuroscience Institute. Beyond his framework he goes toe-to-toe with Kurzweil's prediction of downloadable brains/personalities as well as Alan Turing's famouse test of intelligence. Hawkins goes on predict the invention of a truly intellience, but not human, machines as the most helpful inventions of all time. If he can crack this algorithm, and it works, more props to him! I like how he separated humanity from intelligence and his call to action is a nice touch. An though I recommend this book, I warn it is not even close to story time. Lastly, Stephan Rudnicki is an awesome reader.

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