A Thousand Brains : : a new Theory of Intelligence
Book - 2021 Adult Book / Nonfiction / Science & Nature / Biology / Hawkins, Jeff, 612.82 Ha 1 On Shelf No requests on this item
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Call Number: Adult Book / Nonfiction / Science & Nature / Biology / Hawkins, Jeff, 612.82 Ha
On Shelf At: Westgate Branch
Location & Checkout Length | Call Number | Checkout Length | Item Status |
---|---|---|---|
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout |
Adult Book / Nonfiction / Science & Nature / Biology / Hawkins, Jeff | 4-week checkout | On Shelf |
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout |
612.82 Ha | 4-week checkout | Due 05-19-2024 |
Foreword / by Richard Dawkins -- Part 1: A new understanding of the brain. Old brain--new brain ; Vernon Mountcastle's big idea ; A model of the world in your head ; The brain reveals its secrets ; Maps in the brain ; Concepts, language, and high-level thinking ; The thousand brains theory of intelligence -- Part 2: Machine intelligence. Why there is no "I" in AI ; When machines are conscious ; The future of machine intelligence ; The existential risks of machine intelligence -- Part 3: Human intelligence. False beliefs ; The existential risks of human intelligence ; Merging brains and machines ; Estate planning for humanity ; Genes versus knowledge ; Final thoughts.
"For all we hear of neuroscience's great advances, the field has generated more questions than answers. We know that the brain combines sensory input from all over your body into a single perception, but not how. We think brains "compute" in some sense, but we can't say what those computations are. We believe that the brain is organized as a hierarchy, with different pieces all working collaboratively to make a single model of the world. But we can explain neither how those pieces are differentiated, nor how they collaborate. Neuroscientist and computer engineer Jeff Hawkins argues that it's so hard to answer questions about the brain because our basic picture of how the brain works is wrong. In A Thousand Brains, Hawkins takes a radically new approach to the brain, with stunning implications. Hawkins' proposal, called the Thousand Brains Theory of Intelligence, is that your brain is organized into thousands upon thousands of individually computing units, called cortical columns. These columns all process information from the outside world in the same way, and each builds a complete model of the world. But because every column has different connections to the rest of the body, each has a unique frame of reference. Your brain sorts out all those models by conducting a vote. The fundamental job of the brain, therefore, is not to build a single thought, but to manage the thousands of individual thoughts it has every moment. With this powerful new framework, Hawkins is able to reassess some of neuroscience's most stubborn problems, like why pain needs to be painful to be useful, how we can understand that our perspective of a thing changes as we move around it, and why we might be conscious but individual pieces of our body aren't. And once you understand how the brain works, it is a lot easier to make one yourself. Hawkins is, above all, an engineer, and A Thousand Brains outlines how a new understanding of intelligence could lead to truly intelligent AI. Hawkins explores how we might create machines that can learn on their own, why we need not fear superintelligent systems, and how human and machine intelligence may someday merge. Combining cutting-edge theoretical neuroscience with an ambitious program for tomorrow's digital minds, A Thousand Brains heralds a revolution in the study of intelligence. It is a big-think book, in every sense of the word"-- Provided by publisher.
REVIEWS & SUMMARIES
CHOICE ReviewPublishers Weekly Review
Summary / Annotation
Author Notes
COMMUNITY REVIEWS
Always good to explore ideas
submitted by DBogie on July 17, 2021, 1:00pm
Intelligent is often judged through limited views.
Exploring beyond narrow guidelines allows more depth to acceptance, understanding, and appreciation.
PUBLISHED
New York : Basic Books, 2021.
Year Published: 2021
Description: 272 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Language: English
Format: Book
ISBN/STANDARD NUMBER
9781541675810
1541675819
ADDITIONAL CREDITS
Dawkins, Richard, 1941-
SUBJECTS
Intellect.
Brain.
Artificial intelligence.