The Energy Economy of Imagination: A Dual-Memory Architecture for Autonomous Systems
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This paper presents UMA (Universal Memory Architecture), a novel cognitive architecture that models imagination as an energy investment. The system maintains two distinct memory structures: a Real Cortex for ground-truth experiences and a Dream Cortex for synthetic experiences. A controlled experiment demonstrates that dreaming improves survival by +6.80% (p = 0.005) and produces a positive net ROI of 0.848 (84.8%). The system is implemented with <35 KB RAM and microsecond-scale query latencies, suitable for low-power autonomous systems.
Author: Puzinas, Darius
Language: English
Subfield: Artificial Intelligence
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7204105950
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