Organoid brains
Matrixims (a portmanteau of Matrix from The Matrix and Sims from The Sims) is a digital world where avatars (non-player characters or NPCs) are controlled by brain cells on a petri dish. Neuronal organoids (1) play The Sims.
Matrixims has collections of biological neurons controlling avatars in a video game. Neuronal stem cells coalesce into a clump of cells called an organoid. This organoid is cultured in Matrixims and densely connected with needle-like electrodes. Neural activity in the organoid is picked up as electrical signals by electrodes. Signals parsed generate actions for a non-player character/avatar/sim in a simulated world (The Sims 1).
In this simulated world, avatars eat, sleep, have relationships, have children, work, interact positively or negatively with other avatars, all controlled by digital logic. Each avatar is driven by numerical mood meter with 8 needs like hunger, sleep and social. Some actions like eating, sleeping or socializing increase hunger, energy or social values respectively on the mood meter, while missing these activities decreases their mood meter values.
Matrixims uses the mood meter to optimize response from neural organoids. A set of organoids are used. Each mood meter metric is always communicated to a specific location on the organoid set to induce specialization in each organoid. Mood meter values are converted to electrical signals and communicated to organoids with electrodes. Electrodes pick up neural signals as feedback to their input. Matrixims is based on research on neural organoids playing Pong by optimizing neural signals to control the Pong paddle to hit the ball (In vitro neurons learn and exhibit sentience when embodied in a simulated game-world). In technical terms, increasing values on the mood meter relay constant frequency signals to organoids. Decreasing mood meter values relay disruptive variable frequency signals to organoids. Feedback is taken constantly from all organoids except when signals are relayed to organoids. Feedback is converted to actions that control avatar behavior. These actions make the avatar move, eat, socialize, rest and so on.
The mood meter is one strategy to optimize behavior of Matrixims neurons-in-a-dish in a digital world like life optimizes for physical reality.
1. Matrixims slides into ASBL II like a floppy disk
2. How neurons optimize for an approximation of life could bring insights into intelligence and brains
3. 3D public library of people
4. Preclinical model of human brain: Matrixims is a biofloppy. It cultures vascularized neural organoids in chip-based bioreactors with media flow to deliver nutrients and therapeutics. Matrixims biofloppy can be bionetworked with more biofloppies for organ systems.
5. Drug testbed: see in real-time neurons under LSD, cannabis, methamphetamine, Xanax, DMT and more drugs
1. Feedback from one organoid fed as input to another organoid to bootstrap higher-order thinking, in the essence of Papadimitriou's Assembly Calculus (Brain computation by assemblies of neurons)
2. Feedback capture resolution needs improvement for optimization of the mood meter
3. Cohabitation and testbed for peer-to-peer transfer learning in a digital society of bots: Model system of the brain in a cohabitated environment. One set of organoids controls one avatar in a game (The Sims 1). Many organoid sets control multiple avatars existing in a shared neighborhood of The Sims. A society fabricated in petri dishes breathing the ether of digital life.
4. Recreating once-living humans (recreators) needs validation data. Behavior from one Matrixims recreatee designed to recreate a person needs to be matched against that person's actual behavior. I believe this can be done by capturing data they generated, and behavior validation with humans who knew the person (recreator). Chatbot program for each avatar for human interaction. Each Matrixims recreation avatar (recreatee) is trained on data generated by the recreator human throughout the course of life, obtained with wilful consent from personal databank. Data includes recreator's self-generated texts, artworks, literature, thesis etc. To explain in 2025 technology, Matrixims is an interactive version of a person's Wikipedia page.
5. NPCs/avatars are wetware but their input and feedback signals are logged on a computer. This input-feedback signal table is a digital twin of a Matrixims brain organoid chip, like a simple infinitely looping program. Interaction between NPCs is recorded and used for neural training for awareness of others beyond the self. Each NPC has a ledger of all its own questions and answers to train self-awareness.
Are we imprisoning minds with consciousness in a prison cell or are we breathing the ether of an unreal reality into cells?
Matrixims plans to store versions of dead people's minds through Lucidna biobanks. Capture DNA and human brain structures of the once-living (mummies like Tutankhamun, cryopreserved individuals like those in Alcor's tanks, biobanked humans), artificially replicate those structures in neural organoids, and hook them up to a shared version of The Sims in Matrixims. This needs validation data to optimize organoid behavior to capture behavior of the once-living recreators.
Our plan is to bootstrap consciousness as we go along. Why? Intelligence arises as a consequence of the central nervous system, and we hate how little is left of people who die. This isn't immortality but it's an interesting experiment if we have wilful consent.
Is this right?
Matrixims combines research in artificial intelligence, neuroscience, computational biology, cognitive science, philosophy, lab automation, and molecular biology.
Matrixims aims to provide 2nd person perspectives to humans across history.
A publicly visible and interactive world, existing for its own sake