Binding: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 272
Publication Date: October 03, 2004
Sales Rank: 165848
Related Items:
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
From the inventor of the PalmPilot comes a new and compelling theory of intelligence, brain function, and the future of intelligent machines
Jeff Hawkins, the man who created the PalmPilot, Treo smart phone, and other handheld devices, has reshaped our relationship to computers. Now he stands ready to revolutionize both neuroscience and computing in one stroke, with a new understanding of intelligence itself.
Hawkins develops a powerful theory of how the human brain works, explaining why computers are not intelligent and how, based on this new theory, we can finally build intelligent machines.
The brain is not a computer, but a memory system that stores experiences in a way that reflects the true structure of the world, remembering sequences of events and their nested relationships and making predictions based on those memories. It is this memory-prediction system that forms the basis of intelligence, perception, creativity, and even consciousness.
In an engaging style that will captivate audiences from the merely curious to the professional scientist, Hawkins shows how a clear understanding of how the brain works will make it possible for us to build intelligent machines, in silicon, that will exceed our human ability in surprising ways.
Written with acclaimed science writer Sandra Blakeslee, On Intelligence promises to completely transfigure the possibilities of the technology age. It is a landmark book in its scope and clarity.
Amazon.com Review:
Jeff Hawkins, the high-tech success story behind PalmPilots and the Redwood Neuroscience Institute, does a lot of thinking about thinking. In On Intelligence Hawkins juxtaposes his two loves--computers and brains--to examine the real future of artificial intelligence. In doing so, he unites two fields of study that have been moving uneasily toward one another for at least two decades.Most people think that computers are getting smarter, and that maybe someday, they'll be as smart as we humans are. But Hawkins explains why the way we build computers today won't take us down that path. He shows, using nicely accessible examples, that our brains are memory-driven systems that use our five senses and our perception of time, space, and consciousness in a way that's totally unlike the relatively simple structures of even the most complex computer chip.Readers who gobbled up Ray Kurzweil's (The Age of Spiritual Machines and Steven Johnson's Mind Wide Open will find more intriguing food for thought here. Hawkins does a good job of outlining current brain research for a general audience, and his enthusiasm for brains is surprisingly contagious. --Therese Littleton
Customer Reviews Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Both broad and deep look at human intelligence (as opposed to the artificial kind)
Let me first get a pet peeve out of the way.I don't like ghostwritten books.To me, they do not read well.Instead of being true written works, they have the feel of something transcribed from an oral lecture.Mixing media like that makes a book feel a little wrong to me.
To his credit, Jeff Hawkins picked a good writer in Sandra Blakeslee.Had Hawkins tried to write the book by himself, it may have been less readable.Or perhaps not written at all.Since I did enjoy the book, ... Read More
Rating: - Thought-provoking.
Ultimately, Hawkins conveys that the ideas which make up his brain theory are not completely set in stone; instead, he feels they are a conceptual start in understanding how the brain can perform some of the tasks that seem very complex and tasks that seem mundane.He describes this as a top-down approach which helps brings structure and progress to a field (neuroscience) which is largely dealing with scattered, abundant, and often conflicting pieces of data.In this way, the data can be sorted in ... Read More
Rating: - A chimerical project based on an extremely interesting interpretation of brain functioning
During the past half-millennium the history of anatomy documents the peculiar custom of using the most advanced technology of each era as the definite model of the human brain. The first match was with clockworks during the sixteenth century; then with the steam engine, in the nineteenth century; one hundred years later with telephone switchboards in the first half of the twentieth century, and in the recent decades, naturally and expectedly, with electronic computers. However sound they might have appeared ... Read More
Rating:  - Bigger, Faster, Stronger
All of human intelligence exists in a 2ml. six sheet layered region of the brain called the neo-cortex as large as a dinner napkin when laid out side to side.This region processes information regardless of sensory form, and is present in all mammals to varying sizes; most of us are lucky to have the largest among all mammals.All incoming sensory information from sight, smell, touch, sound etc. is processed using the same algorithm.Contrary to what most scientists believe, there are no modules specializing ... Read More
Rating: - Great Book!
This is a great book.I think the ideas here will change the world!
On Intelligence |
