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On
Intelligence: How a New Understanding of the Brain
Will Lead to the Creation of Truly Intelligent
Machines, Times Books: Henry Holt and Company - October 2004
Reviewed by Dr. Jonathan Dolhenty
Jeff Hawkins is an entrepreneur and computer expert, responsible for the invention of the popular device known as the PalmPilot, as well as the Treo smart phone and other gadgets. He is also interested in the human brain and how it functions. So it should be no surprise that he has chosen to bring together his two main interests -- computers and the human brain -- in a book entitled "On Intelligence" which presents a new theory about how the brain works and how we can finally build "intelligent" machines. Of course, discussions about computers, artificial intelligence (AI), and the possibility of building intelligent machines have been plentiful for many decades. The English mathematician Alan Turing, an early developer and innovator in the field of digital computers, best known for the Turing machine and the Turing test (both concerned with the relation between computation and mind), proposed a criterion in 1950 which would determine whether or not a machine can "think." A machine can think, he said, if its replies to questions are indistinguishable from those of a human being. With the declaration that "the human brain is just another computer," the field of artificial intelligence was launched. Turing's declaration, however, became controversial and was criticized by both scientists and philosophers, especially those working in the areas of learning psychology and philosophy of mind. Turing's position, now known as "strong" AI, was especially criticized by John Searle, a philosopher and cognitive scientist who created a thought experiment, called the "Chinese Room" argument, which demonstrated that, while the computing device could indeed reply to questions in such a way that made it indistinguishable from a human being, it had no "understanding" regarding its replies, no "meaning" was attached to its replies, and it was not really behaving in the same way that a human being does. Turing's test was shown to be faulty and misleading. In this book, Hawkins goes beyond Turing's ideas and Searle's discussion of the matter, and argues that intelligent machines can and probably will be built, but that a basic understanding of how the brain actually operates is fundamental to the development of such machines. The brain is not a computer, the author claims, but a memory system which makes predictions based on memories resulting from the interaction of events and their relationships. "Intelligence" is defined by Hawkins as "the capacity of the brain to predict the future by analogy to the past." And the first necessity on the way to building an intelligent machine is to understand how the human brain actually works, a subject to which he devotes most of his book. The reader will learn a lot about the evolution of the animate brain, including a lengthy discussion of neural networks and how the neocortex works. The author provides credible information and a compelling framework with which to understand brain activity. Be that as it may, "On Intelligence" is not, despite its arresting title, a treatise on "human" intelligence. First, and I am not one who usually quibbles over definitions, his definition of "intelligence" is too limiting and his book should really be titled "On Animal Intelligence" or "On Machine Intelligence" or, maybe better, "On Computer Intelligence." I would argue that when it comes to "human" intelligence there is a lot more involved than merely "the capacity of the brain to predict the future by analogy to the past." In a "strict" sense of the term, human intelligence is an activity of the "intellect," that cognitive faculty of the mind as it operates at higher abstract and conceptual levels, and thus refers to universal ideas, judgments, and reasoning. These "intellectual" activities, which we philosophers in the classical realistic tradition call "intellection," are virtually ignored by Hawkins. Yet these are the essential activities which make us members of the class of human beings. Second, Hawkins concludes his discussion of consciousness and creativity (Chapter 7) with an interesting paragraph. He states:
No, I am sorry he has not convinced me that "mind" is merely a "label" for what the brain does. Actually, he never defines the term "mind," so it's hard to know what he is really saying. The traditional definition of "mind" as "the conscious knowing subject or the conscious knowing part of the subject" seems to me to be pretty clear and has nothing to do with a "mystical force." It seems obvious to me that "I" am not my "brain." My brain is a physical organ which permits me to have an "I" (ego) in the first place, but I would argue that my "I" is not a label for what my brain does. Third, if I am to infer that he equates "mind" and/or "intellect" with "brain," then his basic thesis regarding human intelligence rests on plain old-fashioned metaphysical materialism and, probably, old-school psychological behaviorism. I would argue that both these philosophical positions have pretty much been discounted today, as these "theories" have been unable to explain and account for the vast array of human activities, both objective and subjective, which all members of the human species experience in ordinary life. Nevertheless, even with its shortcomings, I found the book an interesting read and would recommend it to all those interested in the subject of "intelligent" machines and the future of the digital computer. I just want to warn those readers who may take Hawkins uncritically that there are some philosophical implications here that are important and which the author does not directly address. It is well-written and most readers with any "human" intelligence should find it an easy-to-understand discussion of a relevant topic. On Intelligence, by Jeff Hawkins
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