Jeff Hawkins - TED 2003

Despite some occasional detractors, the efficacy of Hawkins’ persistently catalytic socio-cognitive stigmergy is empirical amidst the present human population … and quintessentially metavalent.

February of this year marked the fifth anniversary of what may someday be considered one of the most memorable of TED Talks.

The very foundations of any practical methods of mind uploading are utterly dependent upon the development of an operational FRAMEWORK for understanding the brain. In this inspiring and perhaps one day historical talk, and in his marvelous book, On Intelligence, Hawkins provided us with the relentless and enlightened AUDACITY to insist upon accelerating efforts to accomplish the specific mapping of the brain, by helping us to break out of our collective malaise and realize THIS TOO IS SOLVABLE; in like fashion to Aubrey de Grey’s enlightened intolerance for the disease of aging.

Thanks in large part to talks like this one, below, we now have The Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, extraordinary new tools for explorations and manipulation of hierarchical temporal memory (HTM) systems, complex 3D neuron reconstructions, and a clarion call for an AI Manhattan Project. It’s been utterly tremendous progress in just five short years.

We spend so much of our time head down in our work; yet, it can be helpful at times take a glance upward to notice and appreciate the change in scenery and the progress we’ve made.