A model of the neocortex

AbstractWe try to explain the function of the cerebral cortex by representing it as a large array of small computers, each of which applies a certain algorithm for learning to predict the inputs from the senses or other parts of the brain. This view ignores the role of the brain as a classifying device, but it puts forward its role as a learner of the laws of evolution of sequences of patterns. Memory is not seen here as a list of facts but as an operator predicting certain parameters of the future states of reality from its present and past states. The problem of connecting the classifying or listing capacity of the brain with the structures described here is still open