===== The Brain =====
==== General Facts ====
  * Control center of the central nervous system
  * Consists of three parts
     * **Forebrain:** Higher functions (thought, reason, abstraction) -> consciously controlled
     * **Midbrain & Hindbrain:** Lower functions (heartbeat, body temperature) -> unconsciously controlled

==== Brain Stem ====
  * Lower part of the brain
  * Midbrain is part of Brainstem
  * Connected to spinal cord
  * „Interface“ to body
  * All information passes through the brain stem

==== Neocortex ====
  * Part of the front brain
  * represents 60-75% of the brain
  * the so called new brain
  * size off about 1000cm²
  * 2-3 mm thick
  * holds about 30 billion neurons
  * General functions:
    * Sensory perception
    * Generation of motor commands
    * Spatial reasoning
    * Conscious 
    * Thought
    * Language

----
==== Oliver Sacks ====
  * Born July 9, 1933 in London
  * Famous neurologist
  * Wrote several books about his patients
     * Awakenings (Movie with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro)
     * The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat



==== Jeff Hawkins ====
  * Born *1957 in New York
  * Graduated as electrical engineer at Cornell University
  * Co-Founder of [[http://www.palm.com/intl/|Palm Inc.]], Handspring and [[http://numenta.com|Numenta]]
  * Developed products like the Palm One and the Treo mobile phone
  * Founder of the [[http://redwood.berkeley.edu/|The Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience]]
  * Generally interested in neuroscience
  * His goal is to understand the brain to build intelegent machines
  * Concerning to him there are no theories of how the brain works


----

==== Books ====
  * Hawkins, Jeff (2006). Die Zukunft der Intelligenz, Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, ISBN 0-3499-62167-3

Original edititon:

  * Hawkins, Jeff (2005). On intelligence, Times Books, Henry Holt and Co., ISBN 0-8050-7456-2

  * Sacks, Oliver (2001). The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, MacMillan, ISBN 0-3302-9491-1







==== Links: ====
  * [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Hawkins|Wikipedia article about Jeff Hawkins]]
  * [[http://www.numenta.com/|Numenta - Hierarchical Temporal Memory System]]
  * [[http://www.allesgelingt.de/blog/wie_funktioniert_das_gehirn_jeff_hawkins_und_die_gehirn-theorie.html|Jeff Hawkins - Wie funktioniert das Gehirn]] Abstract of presentation in german, presentation in english