Only package manager I use: wget, tar, & gnu autotools.

This reminds me of a section of Jeff Hawkins' books On Intelligence. In chapter 6, How the Cortex Works, on p. 115 he says,

"Think about information flowing from your eyes, ears, and skin into the neocortex. Each region of the neocortex tries to understand what this information means. Each region tries to understand the input in terms of the sequences it knows. If it does understand the input, it says, "I understand this, it is just part of the object I am already seeing. I won't pass on the details." If a region doesn't understand the current input, it passes it up the hierarchy until some higher region does. However, a pattern that is truly novel will escalate further and further up the hierarchy. Each successively higher region says, "I don't know what this is, I didn't anticipate it, why don't you higher-ups look at it?" The net effect is that when you get to the top of the cortical pyramid, what you have left is information that can't be understood by previous experience. You are left with the part of the input that is truly new and unexpected.

In a typical day we encounter many new things that make it to the top— for example, a story in the newspaper, the name of the person you met this morning, and the car accident you saw on the way home. It is these unexplained and unanticipated remainders, the new stuff, that enter the hippocampus and are stored there. This information won't be stored forever. Either it will be transferred down into the cortex below or it will eventually be lost.

I have noticed that, as I get older, I have trouble remembering new things. For example, my children remember the details of most of the theatrical plays they have seen in the last year. I can't. Perhaps it is because I have seen so many plays in my life that rarely do I see anything truly new. New plays fit into memories of past plays, and the information just doesn't make it to my hippocampus. For my children, each play is more novel and does reach the hippocampus. If this is true, we could say the more you know, the less you remember."

Is this example of two Mormons in a science class supposed to generalize and apply to all religious individuals that take a science class? Lol. I'm Mormon. If I was asked if I believe the earth is 6,000 years old, I would say no. If I were asked if God used magic to create us, I would say no. Magic is nothing but a word to describe what the human mind cannot comprehend, but there is a natural mechanism which drives all things. Everything is natural once understood. The LDS Church takes no official stance on biological evolution, no revelation is given; and the Roman Catholic Church has outright accepted the theory of evolution as basically true. Neither of the churches with consistent claims to apostolic authority have argued biological evolution as false or misguided. That is an indication in and of itself. Brigham Young even said "In these respects we differ from the Christian world, for our religion will not clash with or contradict the facts of science in any particular...whether the Lord found the earth empty and void, whether he made it out of nothing or out of the rude elements; or whether he made it in six days or in as many millions of years, is and will remain a matter of speculation in the minds of men unless he give revelation on the subject. If we understood the process of creation there would be no mystery about it, it would be all reasonable and plain, for there is no mystery except to the ignorant." [Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 14:166, May 14, 1871]

I think Jeff Hawkins' theory of the neocortex qualifies as being groundbreaking. He was able to assimilate all the multitudes of neuroanatomical and physiological data into a theoretical framework. I am fairly certain most /. readers are aware of this research but it must not be forgotten as an area of research where revolutionary discoveries are being made. Algorithms are already highly developed, and I believe this is the most promising project on approaching 'strong AI.'