A Fundamental Unit Of Intelligence

The neocortex is a thin sheet of cells (few millimeters) covering the brain’s surface—the most recent evolutionary addition responsible for language, abstract reasoning, and everything uniquely human.

Jeff Hawkins and the Numenta team pioneered this framework explaining how the neocortex builds models of reality through 150,000 independent cortical columns.

Each cortical column learns about the world by tracking both sensations and movements, building rich structural models rather than simple feature lists.

Every cortical column—not just motor cortex—must have its own motor output system for the sensorimotor loop to work.

The hippocampus, particularly grid cells and place cells, serves as the evolutionary prototype for how cortical columns build spatial models.

Each cortical column’s six layers form a complete self-contained modeling machine, with each layer playing a specific functional role.

Different cortical columns vote to resolve ambiguity and create unified perception from multiple partial observations.

Higher-level cortical columns use the same sensorimotor algorithm as lower-level columns, but operating on abstract inputs and conceptual movements.