I’ve just finished reading On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins with Sandra Blakeslee. If you don’t know or don’t remember, Jeff Hawkins is the designer and founder of the PalmPilot and Handspring. I see value in this book on two divergent (for most people) fronts. First, in the arena commonly known as artificial intelligence and, secondly, in the unexpected arena of writing.

The book’s subtitle is “How A New Understanding of the Brain Will Lead to the Creation of Truly Intelligent Machines.” That summarizes the official purpose of this book. Hawkins begins by explaining artificial intelligence and neural networks fell short of their goals because they were mimicing the outer human intelligence process. Hawkins maintains the human brain works differently than current computing processes. In fact, the brain operates much more slowly than computing processes and possesses a “memory bank” which is replicatable today (although, not as compactly as a human brain).

Hawkins explains his theory about how our brain’s cortex really works. Basing his thesis on that theory, he conjectures intelligent machine development is ripe for exploding onto the scene. In a side note, the January, 2006, issue of PC Magazine (p.21) has a brief mention about a machine developed by researchers at the Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, CA, that learns from patterns.

While reading Hawkins’ theory about how the cortex works, I surmised this may explain the popular notion that a writer must write a million words before they will write well enough for publication. It applies to any new thing a human learns, not just writing, but before we can learn higher level things, we must repeat the simple things often enough to drive them into the “lower levels” of the brain. (that’s my paraphrasing) Once a pattern becomes ingrained, we’re ready to learn more complex things. I think that means we need repetition to see how a story goes together effectively. I suspect that means, in addition to writing, we need to read both good and bad examples and seek effective feedback on our writing, refining it as we learn. What is the best approach to take to maximize effectiveness of our efforts?

I’ve maintained an eclectic approach is often best, and Hawkins explains why this is so–each of us has a different life experience, which affects the foundation we have to built upon when learning new things. He offers the example of a piano and a vibraphone. He was familiar with a piano. When he bought a vibraphone, he was able to adapt what he knew about the piano to enable him to take a piece of music off the piano and play the vibraphone. I wouldn’t have been able to do that–I don’t have a musical foundation that would allow me to do that. However, I do have things I can adapt to that easily, and I’m certain you do, too, so the analogy works.

Who might enjoy this book? People fascinated by the brain, people interested in intelligent machine design, science fiction writers, or anyone interested in learning new things. Hawkins purposely keeps the book at a layman’s level. If you are a neuro-specialist of any kind, you’ll recognize the over-simplification of his theories. His intent is to spark an interest in young people for this this emerging field.

Note: If you’ve been reading my blogs for long, you know I started reading this book in January, 2005, on a transatlantic flight. I frequently get sidetracked while reading a book–moreso with non-fiction. Even so, I heartily recommend this book as a good read.