On Intelligence

In addition to changing the strength of a synapse, there is evidence that entirely new synapses can be formed between two neurons.

Its only job is to prevent the layer 3b cell from firing when it sees the appropriate pattern in layer 1.

These examples show once again that the cortex is extremely flexible and that the inputs to the brain are just patterns. It doesn’t matter where the patterns come from; as long as they correlate over time in consistent ways, the brain can make sense of them.

We do, however, believe we are being creative when our memory-prediction system operates at a higher level of abstraction, when it makes uncommon predictions, using uncommon analogies.

The cortex evolved in two directions. First it got larger and more sophisticated in the types of memories it could store; it was able to remember more

Plato wondered how people are able to think and know about the world. He pointed out that real-world instances of things and ideas are always imperfect and are always different.

The goal is to find an analogous situation somewhere in your past or present experience. To succeed you must ponder the problem often but also do other things so the cortex will have the opportunity to find an analogous memory.

So here’s a question: When a single region stores sequences, what are they sequences of? The answer is that a region first classifies its inputs as one of a limited number of possibilities, and then looks for sequences.

The output of all the columns is fed back to layer 1. In this way, layer 1 contains information about which columns were just active in the region of cortex.