I have just been thinking about Jeff Hawkins theory of Intelligence as he explains it in On Intelligence.

I think he misunderstands Zen understanding of consciousness as he describes it on pages 197-198.

A purpose of meditation is to release thoughts about the past and future, through acknowledgement of them, through witnessing them, without following them.

Fitting this into Hawkins theory, Zen meditation is the slowing down and attempted stopping of the memory/predictive process that the neocortex is maintaining. In so doing, conscious experience is felt in a raw present sense. This suggests that consciousness awareness, witnessing, is not a process of the neocortex.

If Hawkins is right then he is explaining how intelligence works, but not how consciousness works.

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