On Intelligence
I highly recommend Jeff Hawkins' book ON INTELLIGENCE. It provides what I believe to be the most readable and insightful account of how intelligence is achieved in the human mind.
The cornerstone of Hawkins' theory is something he calls the "Memory Prediction Model". The Memory Prediction Model states that the human mind is a data processing machine that compares incoming stimuli (raw data) to expectations (predicted data). Intelligence is derived from the mind's ability to use experience (i.e., data stored in memory) to accurately predict how upcoming events will transpire. Experience and repetition hone the mind's ability to make better and better predictions because they enlarge the dataset in memory from which predictions are generated.
An example that Hawkins uses in the book is "catching a baseball". For years, it has been debated how the mind performs the mathematical calculations necessary to track a baseball in flight and accurately predict the trajectory so as to position one's glove to catch it. AI scientists have tried to program robotic arms to catch a projectile without success using calculus equations and chips capable of thousands of calculations per second. Hawkins argues that the AI real time calculation approach is destined to fail because the mind is not performing any mathematical calculations at all. Instead, it is calling upon past experience of baseballs witnessed in flight to predict where the hand should be to catch the ball. This is why a ballplayer with 15 years experience (e.g., > 10,000 repetitions) can position his glove with 99.9% accuracy whereas a 3 year old who has never caught a baseball before will position his glove a foot away from the trajectory of the ball and act surprised when the ball sails past untouched. In other words, we "remember" where to catch a baseball rather than calculate anew with each throw.
For me the most upsetting—and at the same time most incredible—insight derived from reading On Intelligence is what I would call the "demystification" of consciousness. We humans like to think of consciousness as this mystical and special state of existence that we alone possess. But if you apply Hawkins' model, consciousness simply boils down to the junction where memory and prediction intersect in an active mind. In other words, consciousness is your most recent set of memories (i.e., perceived incoming stimuli/data from your senses) and your expectation (i.e., prediction) of what is going to happen next to you. For example, you are sitting in chair reading this post at this instant, and the next instant you expect to be sitting in the chair reading this post. That is consciousness.
There are hundreds of implications to this definition, but I will offer two as food for thought as a end this post:
(1) Our consciousness resides approximately 50 millisecond in the past. This cannot be changed because it takes time to process incoming stimuli and compare to what the mind predicts (expects) stimuli to be.
(2) If you alter either of the mechanisms of consciousness: Memory or the ability to make Predictions, you fundamentally alter the quality and nature of consciousness. (For example, consciousness is not as robust for an Alzheimer's patient as it was for him/her as an alert thirty year old).
Check out On Intelligence. I promise, you will never think about your mind the same way again.
—B