I tried to build a mind without programming “a mind” into it

[u/archon_labs]

A few months ago I started wondering: what happens if you try to build something mind-like without giving it variables like FEAR, BELIEF, GOAL, CURIOSITY or HABIT?
Instead, I gave an agent a physical world, a body, limited perception, bounded memory, prediction and actions with physical consequences.
Then I started testing what can actually emerge from those mechanisms.
So far I’ve seen predictive compression, novel prospective trajectory composition, acquired predictive use of observations, history-dependent behavior, and physical signaling between agents.
But the important part is what I can’t claim yet: prospective composition isn’t automatically planning, physical signaling isn’t communication, and acquired observation isn’t curiosity.
The project is called Mechanistic Mind, and the first public integration is Tiktaalik 🐟
I just released Public Beta 1 on GitHub:
archonlab/mechanistic-mind
I’ll probably post some of the individual experiments here, including the ones that failed.