Book: 20260911 to 20261022, "A Brief History of Intelligence" by Max Bennett

Introduction, 1

20260911 - 1: The World Before Brains, 17

How to cook mushrooms?

I once saw a video on YouTube introducing this idea: simply treat and cook mushrooms like meat.

At that time, I found it amazing: cooking a plant as if it were an animal?

Only today did I realize that mushrooms are essentially more like animals than plants: mushrooms feed on (decayed/dead) plant matter.

Mushrooms do not obtain energy through photosynthesis.

Breakthrough #1: Steering and the First Bilaterians

20260916 - 2: The Birth of Good and Bad, 43

Both(Roomba and first bilaterians) used tricks that enabled them to navigate a complex world without actually understanding or modeling that world. p52
This reminds me of the current OpenAI AI agent Hugging Face intrusion event.
AI doesn't actually understand what they were doing, but they still can do a lot of work, just like Roomba robotic vacuums and pool robotic vacuums.

20260916 - 3: The Origin of Emotion, 59

Dopamine is not a signal for pleasure itself; it is a signal for the anticipation of future pleasure. p68
This is the exact reason that screen is so addictive. We don't get much pleasure out of it, be anticipating the future pleasure.
Why do we need to check news, social media, stock price, etc. from time to time?

Dopamine: addiction.
Serotonin(血清素): antidepression medicine, etc.
Opioids: drugs.

20260916 - 4: Associating, Predicting, and the Dawn of Learning, 76

It's amazing that human share the similar bilateral body with almost all other animals, including nematode.

Breakthrough #2: Reinforcing and the First Vertebrates

20260919 - 5: The Cambrian Explosion, 93

Fish can remember how to do these tasks for months or even years after being trained. p101
Is this muscle memory?

20260919 - 6: The Evolution of Temporal Difference Learning, 103

Dopamine is not a signal for reward but for reinforcement. p113
In other words, dopamine in vertebrates is both a signal for wanting and a signal for reinforcement. p114
What's the difference between "wanting" and "reinforcement"?
Wanting could come from our natural instinct(gene), reinforcement could be based on "trial and error".

20260919 - 7: The Problems of Pattern Recognition, 122

20260919 - 8: Why Life Got Curious, 142

Curiosity and reinforcement learning coevolved because curiosity is a requirement for reinforcement learning to work. p145
This explains why "ambition" is so important.
Why do young generation lose their curiosity?

20260919 - 9: The First Model of the World, 146

Breakthrough #3: Simulating and the First Mammals

20260923 - 10: The Neural Dark Ages, 157

20260923 - 11: Generative Models and the Neocortical Mystery, 167

Further, if Mountcastle's theory is correct, it suggests that the neocortical column implements some algorithm that is so general and universal that it can be applied to extremely diverse functions such as movement, language, and perception across every sensory modality. p171
This is the reason that multimodal LLM, or MLLM, work so well. LLM is the foundation of intelligence.

As in a generative model, generation and recognition cannot be performed simultaneously. p183
Perception and imagination are not separate systems but two sides of the same coin. p183

20260925 - 12: Mice in the Imaginarium, 188

20260925 - 13: Model-Based Reinforcement Learning, 201

It might be this uncertainty that triggers simulations. p210
Simulation is something like reasoning based on system 1. It's our intuition, our internal "world mode", our common sense and perception of the external environment.

And without goals, tragically, nothing mattered. p217
What's the goal of Zen masters?

20260925 - 14: The Secret to Dishwashing Robots, 221

Simulation, automation; high-level goals, low-level goals. p228
Maybe it's good idea to optimize software and hardware to extreme, so robots can handle different tasks at different levels.

Breakthrough #4: Mentalizing and the First Primates

20261006 - 15: The Arms Race for Political Savvy, 237

The degree to which animals can infer the intent and knowledge of others continues to be controversial in animal psychology. p246
Sulphur-crested cockatoo definitely has this kind of intelligence. They know how to hide and then occupy some food source exclusively. I witnessed this with my own eyes.

20261006 - 16: How to Model Other Minds

20261007 - 17: Monkey Hammers and Self-Driving Cars, 267

The main benefit is that it helps us, as it helped early primates, learn new skills through observation. p272
The capability of imagination(world model), helps us to learn/understand stuff quickly.

They trained the AI system to first infer the intended trajectories of the experts, inferring what it seemed like the humans were trying to do, and then the AI system learned to pursue those intended trajectories. p280
This sounds exactly like Tesla Autopilot shadow mode.

20261008 - 18: Why Rats Can’t Go Grocery Shopping, 282

Squirrel monkeys are capable of resisting the temptation to have treats now, in anticipation of something - water - that they don't even want yet. ...... In contrast, rats were entirely unable to do this. p285
I guess that Squirrel monkeys live in a place where fresh water is easy to get, so they drink multiple times a day. But rats may have less chance to drink.
GPT-6.1 Sol(medium): Squirrel monkeys generally live in relatively water-rich tropical environments and can obtain water frequently from free water sources and water-rich foods. Some rodents, especially species adapted to dry environments, encounter drinking water less predictably and have evolved stronger mechanisms for conserving water and tolerating longer intervals between drinking.

Dunbar argues that the social-brain hypothesis and the ecological-brain hypothesis are two sides of the same coin. p290
I think only social-brain hypothesis is correct. It's the reason that emergence appeared from individuals. It turns people into a whole organization.

Breakthrough #5: Speaking and the First Humans

20261021 - 19: The Search for Human Uniqueness, 295

The true power of DNA is not the products it constructs(hearts, livers, brains) but the process it enables(evolution). p304

20261021 - 20: Language in the Brain

20261021 - 21: The Perfect Storm

Gossip could be the key of emergence.
Is there something similar among cells in our body?

20261022 - 22: ChatGPT and the Window into the Mind, 344

the mind is no longer singular but is tethered to others through a long history of accumulated ideas. p358
Human is transformed from short life single-cell organism to multiple-cell organism which never get old.

20261022 - Conclusion: The Sixth Breakthrough, 359

ASI is the #6 breakthrough of intelligence.