Modeling Self-Dissolution: Evidence from AI, Dreams, and Neurodegeneration
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) December 20, 2025 Michael Trifonov
A theoretical paper argues that Alzheimer's disease may be primarily a disorder of self-coherence maintenance rather than memory storage. The self is described as a coherence mechanism that organizes experience; when the internal reward signal maintaining this structure fails, the self degrades through neglect, producing confabulation, temporal disorientation, and identity fragmentation. Two lines of evidence are offered: dream phenomenology, where non-lucid dreams mirror Alzheimer's symptoms while lucid dreams do not, and large language models, where removing identity structure produces outputs resembling both dreams and dementia. The author suggests that effective intervention may require protocols targeting self-valuation.