A Quote by Jeff Hawkins

Prediction is not just one of the things your brain does. It is the primary function of the neo-cortex, and the foundation of intelligence. — © Jeff Hawkins
Prediction is not just one of the things your brain does. It is the primary function of the neo-cortex, and the foundation of intelligence.
We live in the Age of the Higher Brain, the cerebral cortex that has grown enormously over the last few millennia, overshadowing the ancient, instinctive lower brain. The cortex is often called the new brain, yet the old brain held sway in humans for millions of years, as it does today in most living things. The old brain can't conjure up ideas or read. But it does possess the power to feel and, above all, to be. It was the old brain that caused our forebears to sense the closeness of a mysterious presence everywhere in Nature.
You stimulate the neo-cortex, it produces a symphony. But it's not just a symphony of perception. It's a symphony of your universe. Your reality.
At every level there are eight stages of intelligence. You have to turn your brain on to the circuits that are used at that level of intelligence. And there are ways to change the human brain to different stages. The things that change your brain are called 'drugs'.
The brain is a dynamic system that constantly processes and creates your reality. It works best if you balance all the things that the brain is good at. The brain is good at being adaptable, flexible, creative, and intelligent. But it's also good at playing and just being. A balanced life provides time - every day if possible - so that every function of the brain is allowed to come alive and flourish.
A fixed habit is supported by old, well-worn pathways in the brain. When you make conscious choices to change a habit, you create new pathways. At the same time, you strengthen the decision-making function of the cerebral cortex while diminishing the grip of the lower, instinctual brain. So without judging your habit, whether it feels like a good one or a bad one, take time to break the routine, automatic response that habit imposes.
Art work is inconclusive. It opens your mind up. At least, that's what I hope it does. And advertising, using exactly the same photograph, closes things down. It makes it conclusive. It sells a product, and that is its primary function.
What does the frontal cortex do? Gratification postponement, executive function, long-term planning, and impulse control. Basically, it makes you do the harder thing.
First, Know well that Intellectuality is not intelligence. To be intellectual is to be phony; it is a pretending intelligence. It is not real because it is not yours; it is borrowed. Intelligence is the growth of inner consciousness. It has nothing to do with knowledge, it has something to do with meditativeness. An intelligent person does not function out of his past experience; he functions in the present. He does not react, he responds. Hence he is always unpredictable; one can never be certain what he is going to do.
Your primary purpose is to be here fully, and to be total in whatever you do so that the preciousness of the present moment does not become reduced to a means to an end. And there you have your life purpose. That's the very foundation of your life.
They believed that prediction was just a function of keeping track of things. If you knew enough, you could predict anything. That's been cherished scientific belief since Newton.' And?' Chaos theory throws it right out the window.
It seems that the brain has a "small world" architecture - or at least the cortex does. Everything can connect to everything else in a few synaptic steps.
My own fault. The equipment had safeties but your primary piece of protective equipment was your brain. There was a presumption that anyone entering this room was intelligent enough to keep away from hot things, sharp things, and things carrying large stores of momentum.
Function is fundamental to design, of course. If something doesn't work, it's a bad product, and I certainly get frustrated by things that aren't functional. But there has to be more than function. A house has to function, but if that's all it does, you don't love it.
Most of our brain cells are glial cells, once thought to be mere support cells, but now understood as having a critical role in brain function. Glial cells in the human brain are markedly different from glial cells in other brains, suggesting that they may be important in the evolution of brain function.
If a brain is exercised properly, anyone can grow intelligence, at any age, and potentially by a lot. Or you can just let your brain idle - and watch it slowly, inexorably, go to seed like a sedentary body.
So, you can define emotions very simply as the process of perceiving what is going on in the organs when you are in the throws of an emotion, and that is achieved by a collection of structures, some of which are in the brain stem, and some of which are in the cerebral cortex, namely the insular cortex, which I like to mention not because I think it's the most important, it's not.
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