This book introduces the SP Theory of Intelligence (SPTI), a bold framework for understanding both natural and artificial intelligence via information compression (IC). The name "SP" is short for Simplicity and Power—two ideas that mean IC as the basis for intelligence. Central in the SPTI is the concept of the SP-Multiple-Alignment, a major discovery with the potential to be as significant for an understanding of intelligence as DNA is for an understanding of biology. It may prove to be the "double-helix" of intelligence!With this unifying idea, the book shows how several aspects of intelligence may be integrated seamlessly, including understanding language, the creation of meaningful language, solving problems, making plans, and more. It also reveals a surprising insight: that mathematics can be seen as a set of techniques for IC, and their application. Together, these discoveries point to the exciting possibility of a "New Mathematics", combining the strengths of the SPTI with more than two thousand years of thinking about mathematics.

This book introduces the SP Theory of Intelligence (SPTI), a bold framework for understanding both natural and artificial intelligence via information compression (IC). The name "SP" is short for Simplicity and Power—two ideas that mean IC as the basis for intelligence. Central in the SPTI is the concept of the SP-Multiple-Alignment, a major discovery with the potential to be as significant for an understanding of intelligence as DNA is for an understanding of biology. It may prove to be the "double-helix" of intelligence!With this unifying idea, the book shows how several aspects of intelligence may be integrated seamlessly, including understanding language, the creation of meaningful language, solving problems, making plans, and more. It also reveals a surprising insight: that mathematics can be seen as a set of techniques for IC, and their application. Together, these discoveries point to the exciting possibility of a "New Mathematics", combining the strengths of the SPTI with more than two thousand years of thinking about mathematics.