Unless you have the spare cash, time and resources then the whole argument is moot, and you must find another way of achieving the goals within your means. You can negate most of the above by taking a leaf out the Wright brothers methodology… take a leap of faith (in yourself) and just build the damn thing, make it work… prove it works.
Every now and again I like to take a break from teaching/ designing my AGI’s and consider human frailties, and check if my design can simulate the symptoms, and/ or give any insights into the prognosis/ diagnosis or cure. I have a list, roughly ordered by complexity and today it’s the turn of terminal or paradoxical lucidity (PL). Paradoxical Lucidity is one of natures cruellest tricks, approx 75% of patients with long term dementia will fully/ partially become conscious/ lucid shortly before they die. It’s a very complex diagnosis that ties into many other conditions and I’m greatly over simplifying the topic for the purpose of explanation. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1552526019300950 Considering the phenomena in its simplest terms obviously begs the question of how this can happen/ function. It seems intuitive that for normal (ish) function to return the symptoms of dementia cannot be caused by permanent damage/ change, or that something like a build up of amyloid plaque is ultimately responsible, but something is impeding consciousness, so what could it be. Keep in mind I have already done this for a myriad of conditions and phenomena, so I have insight into how my model behaves/ functions. I’ve replicated optical/ audio illusions, pareidolia, schizophrenia, hallucinations, hypnotism, meditation (states of mind), epilepsy, anaesthesia, NDE, and many more, all with in the same model. Firstly I read as much empirical information about the subject as possible. Then formulate a theory of how those symptoms could arise and manifest within my model. I then alter the models balances and test, repeat until I get the desired results, making notes all the way. Within my model memory consolidation and consciousness are extremely sensitive to the base frequencies of the Global Thought Pattern (GTP). The high dimensional facets of memories are encoded/ indexed by the state of the GTP performing the task at hand, consciousness manifests from the harmonics within the GTP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJmdWfDTgLQ This shows a small section (1.2mm², 0.01%, 10K neurons, 200K synapse) of cerebral cortex from my model, I use it for testing hypotheses and it encompasses all the functionality of the full model. It’s learned 40K memory engram's segmented into 80 pattern concepts along with a regular base GTP rhythm. The graph (lower left) function is equivalent to real-time colour coded Golgi staining, and shows the confidence the model has in recognising the current pattern, shown by the scrolling bar. Notice the actual pattern stream/ matrix on the upper right along with the injected regular GTP rhythm just below. On the first pass it shows a very high confidence in recognising the all patterns, both the episodic sequence memories and the memories regarding the pattern structure are being recalled/ accessed. On the second pass I change the base frequency of just the GTP, notice how the memory retrieval/ recognition becomes sporadic. On the third pass I cut the GTP and the confidence totally drops even though the 80 patterns are still being injected. I then re-establish the GTP and normal operation resumes. This shows how reliant/ sensitive the system is to the state of the underlying base GTP frequencies. The slow onset of dementia hints at the second pass, it’s not like the global GTP disruption caused by anaesthetic, so I don’t think it’s an imbalance in the neurotransmitter levels/ medium. It must also be affecting the well established networks with diminished plasticity; otherwise the brain would just adapt to the disruptions and wouldn’t then be able to exhibit the PL phenomena. So one cause of dementia could be an alteration of the base frequencies within the GTP, and the PL phenomena could mean that whatever is causing the phase change is related to a condition that rises or reduces/ diminishes just before death. Allowing the GTP to phase back through its normal frequency domain and thus allowing consciousness to temporarily return. My current main candidate is intracranial pressure, as altering the shape of the connectome can also have adverse effects on the phase of the GTP, further pondering is required. My point being that… although there is no empirical data on how the human brain functions it is still possible to gain insights and build a working model through experimentation and cross reference, and although this is a low resolution insight into the functioning of the brain it hints that so far my schema is correct. Indeed, IMO this is the only way to do it, you have to work the problems. Applying/ finding empirical scientific proof of every required step/ concept would make the project impossible, especially to a lone researcher with limited resources. :) ------------------------------------------ Artificial General Intelligence List: AGI Permalink: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T87761d322a3126b1-M69e955d6c9d973f1a3850431 Delivery options: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription
