Artificial General Intelligence

Many questions, few answers.

• Under what circumstances is a synapse between two neurons formed?  How does this effect vary with distance?  Since a synapse is generally unidirectional, what determines the direction?
• Under what circumstances is a negative-weight synapse between two neurons formed? (This one is far more difficult to answer.)
• In the early stages of human development, what aids the formation of the complex sensory input processing networks (e.g. vision)?  Is it the boosted number of synapses?  Is the structure of these purpose-specific networks actually encoded in the DNA or do they form naturally as a result of the sensory input?
• How does the number of neurons and synapses required to drive a sentient (artificial) brain vary with the amount of sensory input (e.g. how many neurons do you need for 128x128 (mapped like the human eye) stereoscopic colour vision)?
• How many neurons and synapses are required for the mastery of a natural language?
• What kind of (virtual) environment would be the most appropriate for a AGI to "grow" in?
• The human brain also uses chemical signalling for things like pain and emotion; are these things actually necessary for the development of a sentient being (this question is quite warranted since pain is a very quick path to self-awareness since it triggers self-preservation)?
• What is the simplest (computationally speaking) model that accounts for the complexity of the brain and approximates its functioning?

>>11
To OP, why are you asking how many neurons are needed when you can just test it?
Because the question is how many neurons are required to give the AI visual sensory input of a given resolution and make it sentient.  So far, the latter has never been achieved, so testing is a bit out of the question.  The question that needs to be answered before answering this question is how the fuck to put together and educate an AI to sentience.

Because lots of neurons means slow convergence, the smaller networks will out-compete the larger ones, thus you will naturally end up with a small net that is just large enough to be smart enough to solve the problem.
To solve the problem?  This thread is not about weak/applied AI, it's about strong AI (the kind that can think and learn on its own).