@hallowed31
You say "No, I was looking for a specifically tech-based proof of ghosts." --- Ok, no, don't have anything like that.
You say "I thought your reference model for the overall build was a human being with advanced AI that can do almost everything a human can do, as such your reference model is a human who will one day become a ghost, ie, while alive has an ethereal living soul inside ("ghost in the machine?") ." --- While I want to make it mimic a human as closely as possible, my point is I don't believe a human can create a ghost, only God can. We can only create AI that simulates human intelligence as an approximation while not being genuinely intelligent. Only ARTIFICIALLY intelligent. It won't have a heart, mind, soul, or spirit at all, only a simulation is possible. I don't believe a ghost can be in there at all. Typing code does not form a spirit out of nothing - only the breath of God can IMO.
You say "However, for the AI part, the "mind" if you will, what do you see as being your general approach? I wouldn't know where to begin with that as a hobbyist myself, do you have a sort of roadmap to its "mind" worked out yet?" --- It took me years to figure out where to start on this. But I did figure out where to start and did make a roadmap. I go through all of this in post #5 above in this thread.
You say "Do you have a background as a sculptor?" --- yes.
You say "Is your technique epoxy on clay on wire, generally?" --- well after epoxy on the clay + wire, I cut it open to remove the clay and wire to remove unnecessary weight and then I glue the bone halves back together and then fiberglass + epoxy it again so now its hollow.
You say "how much does the ribcage weigh?" --- I never weighed it maybe 3lbs once hollow
You ask "Have you fitted any electronics inside it yet?" --- no. Because I'm having to design my own schematics for motor controllers and microcontrollers and power supplies custom, the electronics are going much slower and I only have a single motor installed on the entire robot right now and no circuitry. This is because I have had to tear out things and start over time after time due to mistakes and oversights and the trial and error of learning and innovating.
You say "When do you think you'll have the finger moving" --- maybe in a month or two not sure. I have to test and potentially mod the downgearing pulley system which could require rebuilding it from scratch over and over due to some things being wrong with it that I did not foresee. Same applies to the motor controller. So these things are almost impossible to estimate time to completion. Like Edison inventing the lightbulb, he may have never completed it or it could take a week or a year who knows it is shooting in the dark practically waiting for the eureka moment. It is slightly like that although not as extreme. I'm not going THAT innovative, pulleys already exist as do motor controllers. But custom implementations do have a learning curve of trial and error IMO. And I'll have to code the microcontroller to run the custom motor controller mosfets too which is significant work. I'm probably doing sinusoidal control instead of FOC control. But this is going to be a hard job still for me.
You say "9 years is a long time to work hard on something" --- well I took a lot of long breaks during that timeframe to work on other things and just spend time away. Sometimes I feel burned out or overwhelmed or afraid of failure and that causes me to not want to work on it until I can see my next few steps clearly in my mind. When you feel stuck, time off can help you plan your next moves and this can take months. Inspiration and answers just come when they come and if you don't have them you can't really move forward IMO. Sometimes time off is mandatory.
You ask "Do you have the Arduino code to share?" --- I coded everything for brushed dc motors at one point and it was working but then I found out brushless motors are far superior in every way and scrapped all brushed motors which means my coding was all no longer needed for the robot. So I have no code for my new brushless approach so far. I'll make that once my motor controller and microcontrollers are done and I'm ready.
You ask "Are there systems you have considered using that have evolved since you first started conceptualizing this project 9 or 10 years ago?" --- yes. For one, instead of fiberglass skeleton, I'm doing a medical PVC skeleton for the first robot to save time. The fiberglass one is only 1/3 finished and I named it Adam. The PVC medical skeleton I named Abel. Abel will be the first robot I complete now and Abel will pick up where I left off in building Adam for me. The sprinkler system onto the motors I scrapped. Too risky to send water into the electronics even if they are potted, what if it got chipped and water got in: boom. So that's out. But the robot sweating system is still a go, the artificial lungs are still a go (for air cooling), the artificial heart is still a go (for liquid cooling), the artificial bladder is still a go (for ice and cold water to cool the distilled water of the water cooling system). But instead of the reservoires for the liquids being in the chest, they are going to be where a belly is going from lower ribs to belt-line and when filled it will look like the robot ate alot.
I scrapped using any off the shelf servos since then. Now everything is custom. I scrapped using any gears since then (too noisy) - only using pulleys to downgear now. I scrapped using brushed motors since then (too noisy and weak comparatively) - only using brushless now. I mean there's dozens more, but this is just some of the major changes. Which means even if I did work faster then, it would have just meant more stuff to tear out and start over. Which is why I think working slow is fine since you have to start over so much anyways, why race?
You say "you talk about a cooling system that mimics a human's in some way, by running water throughout the system after the robot drinks water like a human." --- this I still plan to do, but the tapwater (non-distilled) it drinks will go into a large reservoir/bag and this bag will touch the bag containing the liquid coolant (distilled water) that flows through every part of the body to cool the electronics and the touching of the hot bag of liquid and the cool freshly drank water and ice bag will be the transmission point of the heat being conducted into that cold bag thereby removing the heat from the hot coolant and the whole robot cooling down rapidly that way. Once the two bags neutralize in temp, the robot can pee out the drinking water bag and drink cold water again as needed. The cold water also will be part of a evaporative air conditioner built into the robot's chest.