[Zero]

Yup! So do I! It'll require some thought, but it's just too good to give up on. I'm gonna do my best to incorporate it into my project.

We should keep in mind, that while it might be part of the implementation, it could also rather be an a posteriori observation one would make when looking at a well designed system. Wow, this sentence is weird. Am I being understandable?

any one philosophy, or modus operandi, doesn't apply well to all situations

Oh yes, I've been feeling this very often during my researches. I think I finally got something that do apply well to anything, at least the way I see it. I strongly believe there's not 1 AGI solution, but many ways it can be achieved.

First, you should be careful of the word "blackboard" because there exists a variation on expert systems called a blackboard system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_system), so I'm not sure if you're referring to a blackboard system or the common notion of a blackboard.

This wikipedia article describes exactly what I'm talking about. A blackboard.
Please don't presume I don't know what I'm talking about.

Close, but not quite.

I know, I wasn't suggesting that we were doing it identically. On the contrary! You do FOA with a single node, I do it differently because I don't think 1 node  is enough to represent the current state of mind. What do you think?

P.S.--This system builds hierarchies and free will into it. (1) Hierarchies: Because interrupts will inevitably occur (hunger, restlessness, etc.), this keeps the system motivated to keep changing its state in order to survive. Survival is the #1 goal. (2) Free will: In some search modes, such as free association or random selections between equally appealing alternative actions, the system's behavior is not completely predictable. This is not a deterministic system.

Do you consider that free will is only a result of randomness?

[AndyGoode]

This wikipedia article describes exactly what I'm talking about. A blackboard.
Please don't presume I don't know what I'm talking about.

I didn't presume. I was implying that *I* didn't understand which concept you meant. Anyway, now I know so you can unruffle your feathers.

You do FOA with a single node, I do it differently because I don't think 1 node  is enough to represent the current state of mind. What do you think?

I was using a simplified description of what I'm fairly sure is happening in the brain. Here are a few complications my diagram didn't show: (1) What I'm showing as a single node in the above diagram is more accurately described as an outstar, where all the nodes within one link of the central FOA node are also activated. Presumably all those target nodes 1-link distant have a different character, maybe a different phase, maybe a different frequency, so that the brain knows those target nodes are only associations and not the main concept being considered. (2) Because the brain is constantly learning, even while reasoning, a fast, dynamic mechanism of clustering nodes into a single outstar collection is presumably used. In that way the entire state of the immediately applicable part of a blackboard (of a blackboard system) can temporarily be encoded as a single node (or more accurately, outstar) used as the FOA. (3) After posting my diagram I realized I didn't take into account the subconscious, which would be a third level of processing, operating in parallel to the other two levels. There are some complications with the subconscious layer, mostly because it doesn't normally communicate in the same manner as the other two layers, but its functioning is roughly similar. If I get some time I'll post another diagram to include the subconscious layer and maybe more detail to show that outstars are being used.

Do you consider that free will is only a result of randomness?

No, not at all. A person must make decisions all the time, especially decisions that require moral judgment, so whatever heuristics a given person uses for such decisions will be often determine the outcome of the decision-making process. I believe an intelligent person makes a conscious decision as to how much each of the applicable heuristics apply, so they definitely have free will based on intelligent, conscious thought.

P.S.--Here's my updated diagram. I hope it's more understandable:

[Zero]

I didn't presume. I was implying that *I* didn't understand which concept you meant. Anyway, now I know so you can unruffle your feathers.

My feathers    my bad, I didn't read carefully, sorry.

I believe an intelligent person makes a conscious decision as to how much each of the applicable heuristics apply

Interesting. I'm not sure a lot of people make conscious decisions about this. Maybe a little. One way or another, the activation chain has to start from somewhere behind the curtain anyway.

Yes your diagram is very clear, thank you for sharing it.

[AndyGoode]

Yes your diagram is very clear, thank you for sharing it.

You're welcome. I think it's the most general model of cognition that exists. I once applied for a job that wanted an expert in all the *published* models of thinking that existed, especially SOAR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soar_%28cognitive_architecture%29). I had read most of Newell's book on SOAR but that wasn't good enough for the company, so they didn't hire me, and I ended up moving out of state and coming up with a model that is probably better than any published model that anybody they hired could have shown them. Go figure.

One thing that's nice about the model is that it also dreams: all you do is turn the mode selector to an uncontrolled mode--unconsciousness--whereupon thoughts wander somewhat randomly during that period, following either associations, or being influenced by interruptions that cause partial  wakefulness (such as a noise or physical sensation while asleep), with the subconscious sometimes kicking in to produce some clever planning on the outcome of the dream, like a hidden script writer.

As for how the *average* person makes decisions, I would have no respect for their "method" except maybe as humor.

[Zero]

I ended up moving out of state and coming up with a model that is probably better than any published model that anybody they hired could have shown them.

Did you implement your model?

[AndyGoode]

Did you implement your model?

Mostly not. The basic idea comes from my dissertation, so that part was simulated, but I just came up with the idea of the subconscious while responding to your thread. If you or somebody wants to code the idea, you're going to run into trouble with the mode selector switch because the design for that is much deeper and much more general than the simple design I showed in the diagram, and this general model of cognition doesn't address the key issues of intelligence, either, only the top-level functioning of a brain-like system.