Quotes About Understanding

I can feel you, without even seeing you.

we learn by moving. In order to learn a model of a building, we must walk through it, going from room to room. To learn a new tool, we must hold it in our hand, turning it this way and that, looking and attending to different parts with our fingers and eyes. At a basic level, to learn a model of the world requires moving one or more sensors relative to the things in the world.

Discovery Number One: The Neocortex Learns a Predictive Model of the World

We are not consciously aware of most of the predictions made by the brain unless an error occurs. Trying to understand how the neurons in the neocortex make predictions led to the second discovery.

Your brain has made a model of the world and is constantly checking that model against reality.

We have learned a tremendous amount of knowledge and facts about the brain, but we have little understanding of how the whole thing works.

The difficult part of knowledge is not stating a fact, but representing that fact in a useful way.

Chinese Room

Although we can't know the details of the future, the Thousand Brains Theory can help us define the boundaries. Understanding how the brain creates intelligence tells us what things are possible, what things are not, and to some extent what advances are likely.

Discovering a useful reference frame is the most difficult part of learning, even though most of the time we are not consciously aware of it.

Me, feeling. What a concept.

you can't use logic on human behavior.

Of course, having information to use is one thing. Knowing what it means and how to use it is a different story.

She looked up and ran her eyes over me, slowly, while I stood and wondered why. Had she forgotten what I looked like? But she finished with a big smile. She really did like me, the idiot.

I think that's nice, and if I could have feelings at all I would have them for Deb.

When faced with people who have very limited conversational skills and no apparent desire to cultivate any it's always easier to simply go along.

A reasonable being might think that he and I could find some common ground; have a cup of coffee and compare our Passengers, exchange trade talk and chitchat about dismemberment techniques. But no: Doakes wanted me dead. And I found it difficult to share his point of view.

As Deborah had so astutely pointed out, I was engaged and still didn't get it.

Is that why you're crying? (...) It's just hormones, she said. I didn't want anyone to see. I skipped over the image of anyone seeing her hormones and tried to focus on the heart of the matter.

It was a little insulting to admit that a drooling dolt like Coulter might be right about something, but after all, Isaac Newton didn't reject gravity just because the apple had a low IQ.

I read on. Aramaic, like Hebrew, did not use vowels. Instead, you had to supply them yourself.

This was not even a matter of putting two and two together; it was looking at four.

It was a touchy problem, and it would call for a rare and difficult combination of flattery and firmness, mixed with just the right touch of compassionate understanding, and I was certain it would be a real challenge to my skill as a Human Impersonator. I

Barely, only just almost, I could understand Deborah's decision not to help me. Her career was everything to her, and I really was, after all, all she said I was and feared I would be again. I was and I would be, undeniably, unchangeably, and eagerly. It made a certain sense for her to think that way, and while I could never endorse it as a plan of action, I could at least comprehend the mental process that had led her there.