# How to incorporate goals in HTM: discussion

**URL:** <https://discourse.numenta.org/t/how-to-incorporate-goals-in-htm-discussion/7783>\
**Category:** Numenta Theory\
**Created:** [August 6, 2020, 12:06am UTC](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/how-to-incorporate-goals-in-htm-discussion/7783 "2020-08-06T00:06:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 9

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**Author:** ![Bitking](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.numenta.org/bitking/32/3099_2.png) [@Bitking](https://discourse.numenta.org/u/Bitking)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2020, 12:51pm UTC](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/how-to-incorporate-goals-in-htm-discussion/7783/9 "2020-08-06T12:51:34Z")

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> [@breznak](#):
>
> i think emotions (mind-body) play the role here.
> 
> - you touch something hot → hurts you
> - you are starving, find something to eat, feel good.
> 
> These are driven by the old, “reptilian” brain, and we use it to survive/not to harm ourselves. HTM then connects the dots and learns the actions and their +/- consequences.

I totally agree and do think that the hippocampus is the structure that combines episodic memory and the subcortical good/bad judgement/flavor to be pushed back onto the cortex. It is necessary to combine the hardwired learning bestowed on the subcortical structures by evolution with the flexible and adaptable cortex.

This does about the same thing as reinforcement learning but is distributed over a much larger system than the usual simplistic local RL methods.

> [@The Thousand Brains Theory - Reviewed](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/the-thousand-brains-theory-reviewed/6528/13):
>
> I respectfully differ on this. I see that the Papez circuit loops through most of the limbic system (including the hippocampus) and that the hippocampus is the main mediator between the two systems (limbic and cortex) - it combines the episodic experience and what we felt about it to drive judgement. We do NOT think through what is good and bad about things, we feel it first and remember it with the experience. This ranges from simple objects to complex social settings. Our judgments of good an…

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