Interesting. But if the creation of new knowledge depends on finding new connections between existing information, then we need to be more specific about what should and should not be forgotten. When you solved the problem, you did forget so much everything you know about calculus as much as some of the connections between the pieces you were playing with. In this sense, it seems we should be pruning or “forgetting” some of the edges in the knowledge graph but not so much nodes. Some amount of eidetic memory still seems like a pre-requisite for such knowledge production. This seems to be related to dropout in neural networks or why meditation and journaling are helpful for problem solving. RAM needs to be clear for efficient processing, but long term memory should still be available. Without eidetic memory, there is nothing to build on.
This is interesting. Sometimes, I have cursed myself for the lack of eidetic memory - but I can see how your final point is truly probably why I was able to succeed after failing so long when confronting a hard problem.
While it might then be ideal to let them forget, I wonder if something akin to journaling and potentially later “stumbling upon and reflecting on” might not be a good intermediate solution.
Interesting. But if the creation of new knowledge depends on finding new connections between existing information, then we need to be more specific about what should and should not be forgotten. When you solved the problem, you did forget so much everything you know about calculus as much as some of the connections between the pieces you were playing with. In this sense, it seems we should be pruning or “forgetting” some of the edges in the knowledge graph but not so much nodes. Some amount of eidetic memory still seems like a pre-requisite for such knowledge production. This seems to be related to dropout in neural networks or why meditation and journaling are helpful for problem solving. RAM needs to be clear for efficient processing, but long term memory should still be available. Without eidetic memory, there is nothing to build on.
Here eidetic means identically remember if only briefly exposed - the nodes that are relevant are continually reinforced to be useful and worthwhile
Yes, I missed that on my first read. The eidetic memory is the prompt context, not the latent concepts learned by the model. Got it
This is interesting. Sometimes, I have cursed myself for the lack of eidetic memory - but I can see how your final point is truly probably why I was able to succeed after failing so long when confronting a hard problem.
While it might then be ideal to let them forget, I wonder if something akin to journaling and potentially later “stumbling upon and reflecting on” might not be a good intermediate solution.
Yes this is exactly correct - I’ve experimented with basic cognitive architectures like this - have more posts planned on this topic 😀