My understanding is that we know the full structural connectome of C. elegans' nervous system, but we can't functionally simulate it because we do not know what the synaptic weights are between its neurons.
This market resolves yes if, before 2033, a project measures or closely approximates the synaptic weights in a real C. elegans' nervous system and then successfully uses those weights in a digital emulation that behaves in a convincingly roundworm-like way.
If the synaptic weights are randomly initialized and then trained like a neural network, that doesn't count.
1,000
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My gut tells me the idea of synaptic weights defining the motions of a nervous system is a simplification, so that either the simulation will be convincing but not actually based on said weights, (and hopefully not *deceptively* convincing, or this could mistakenly resolve to Y,) or the life-simulation research will simply head in another direction.
@TylerColeman If I were to make another market about this with a description that wasn't as focused on synaptic weights, how should I word it?
@HarlanStewart Well, to be true to what you want to ask, you'd have to go more general, right? But then I'd steer clear of predictions because it would become subjective whether the 'mind' were accurately simulated or whether the simulation were convincing. So while I don't fault your level of specificity, I also don't believe there's a viable path to mind simulation in the public sphere at this moment, (despite the seeming optimism of current AI research).
@HarlanStewart I think that at the very least you'd want to model neurotransmitters and other extracellular chemical influences and measure the (potentially neuron/neuron population specific) parameters of a suitable Hodgkin–Huxley model variant... And that's just getting started- biology is a mess....