10.22.2004
Jeff Hawkins and RNI.org
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We attended Jeff Hawkins' RNI.org meeting yesterday in Menlo Park.
Jeff invented the Palm Pilot, the Visor and Treo, three well-known global consumer products. He has a longstanding interest on the brain and intelligence.
Speaking was professor Sue Becker from McMaster University, on theoretical models of cognition, on how people's memories change over time, even within seconds of their initial perception. Our focus here at CL on memory and observed brain speed would have to classify as catalytic outputs of the engine but not the sparkplug.
RNI is trying to understand the mechanics of intelligence, from an engineering perspective, assuming that the problem of understanding the brain shares a commonality with all engineering problems, and can be solved like building
an aqueduct, through repetition of innately simple concepts that offer the deceptive veneer, as in regarding an aqueduct in Spain or gazing up at the dome of the Hagia Sophia, of impossibility.
Jeff's Book is here: On Intelligence
