David Colaço

Reznor got to cover Cars with Gary Numan so it all works out

There is a Rick Rubin interview where he talks about what it was like to pitch the idea to Cash

Trent Reznor said something similar (though involving more cursing)

On November 11th, I will be a speaker in TUM's Frontier in Philosophy Colloquium, talking more on Conceptual Conflict. Check out this link for details on attendance:

Paternal exercise confers endurance capacity to offspring through sperm microRNAs Yin et al. show that paternal exercise improves offspring endurance capacity and metabolic health via sperm microRNAs that reprogram gene expression in early embryos, revealing how exercise benefits c...

I am collecting articles that needle conventions about heredity (it ties to my work on memory). "Paternal exercise confers endurance capacity to offspring through sperm microRNAs," is an example, about which I have things to say. Any thoughts?

www.cell.com/cell-metabol...

This October, I will be a speaker in the Colloquium Philosophie und Wissenschaftsreflexion at Leibniz University Hannover. I will talk on "Generative conceptual conflict in science"

Follow the link for details:

Why studying plant cognition is valuable, even if plants aren’t cognitive - Synthese Philosophers and scientists propose the idea that plants are cognitive, which has been met with criticisms. These criticisms focus on the fact that plants do not possess the properties traditionally associated with cognition. By contrast, several proponents introduce novel ways to conceptualize cognition. How should we make sense of this debate? In this paper, I argue that the plant cognition debate is not about whether plants meet a set of well-delineated and agreed-upon criteria according to which they count as cognitive. Rather, many proponents are hypothesizing about cognition. They construe COGNITION not as an expression of what cognition is, but rather as a conjecture about what cognition might be. These conjectures orient research that can uncover novel similarities amongst the phenomena to which these concepts extend. In defending this view, I argue that investigating plant cognition is valuable, even if the results of these investigations lead us to reject the claim that plants are cognitive.

Here is a little plug of an article I wrote on this topic, using debates about plant cognition (because why not): link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Defining Cognition Matters for Understanding Consciousness Cognition lacks a standard definition. A clearer understanding of it and its evolution in animals is key to unlocking the mystery of consciousness, with implications for AI.

This article serves as another reminder that debating how we define cognitive kind terms is pretty darn critical for gaining purchase on a lot of other debates in cog sci, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence:

Eating the Engram A brief history of memory — in cells, worms, and beyond the brain.

Another piece by the Quanta author (below), who apparently was/is also a member of YACHT, on memory transfer and the worms.

This is the science that I detail and analyze in my book project.

Some of the scholars mentioned in this article have presented at The International Memory Reading Group that @jonathannajenson.bsky.social and I run: sites.google.com/view/memoryr...

What Can a Cell Remember? | Quanta Magazine A small but enthusiastic group of neuroscientists is exhuming overlooked experiments and performing new ones to explore whether cells record past experiences — fundamentally challenging what memory is...

Recent article on memory in unconventional systems:

Couldn't make it to ISH this year; it should be good. If anyone wants info on interesting fashion brands coming out of Porto right now, let me know

This year's BSPS at the University of Glasgow was grand. I had a wonderful time with Jordan Theriault; @davidcolaco.bsky.social‬; ‪@phaueis.bsky.social‬; and Patrick McGivern at our symposium (serious Phil of sci pic). @martahalina.bsky.social‬ was missed by all. Up next - the ISH in Porto.

Philosopher David Colaço, eating a black suit jacket, white shirt and black tie in front of an image with a white balloon with „energy“ written in blue, a blue sky and white clouds on the back, some green tree canopies in front.

Had a great session on the relation between metabolism and cognition at BSPS Glasgow, organized by @davidcolaco.bsky.social . We presented joint work on using metabolism to constrain and generate cognitive models (1/2)

Brenda Milner still with us

Job Opening at the Chair of Philosophy and History of Science and Technology at TUM! Research Fellow for 3 years (renewable). Preferably philosopher w interest in plant, crop & agricultural research (& their history and social studies)
All details: www.sts.sot.tum.de/en/sts/arbei... #philsci #sts

Here is the program:

Tomorrow, we will have a symposium on "The Cognitive
Importance of “Non-cognitive” Processes: Reconsidering the connection between metabolism and cognition" at the BSPS. Join us and talk about metabolism.

Chirimuuta Wins 2025 Lakatos Award - Daily Nous Mazviita Chirimuuta (Edinburgh) is the winner of the 2025 Lakatos Award. Chirimuuta received the award for her book, The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience ...

It's a good book. You should read it.

The conditional must include saltiness

Postdoc opportunity w/ @rachelankeny.bsky.social & philosophy group at Wageningen University on topics such as philosophy of science & technology, philosophy of biology, agricultural & food ethics, human-animal relations for 2026-27. For full consideration, application draft by 30 August
#philsci

I still have a few years in me where I can get suplexed

The summer anime season looks solid

@phaueis.bsky.social teaching some of my work in his course:

Here is the schedule: gwp2025.sciencesconf.org/data/pages/2...

If you will be at GWP this Wednesday, come to my talk on the history and philosophy of neural networks. I will talk about a historical case of AI "hype" and correct pernicious inaccuracies about Frank Rosenblatt (perceptron) that are still repeated in popular press and academic works to this day.

Why studying plant cognition is valuable, even if plants aren’t cognitive - Synthese Philosophers and scientists propose the idea that plants are cognitive, which has been met with criticisms. These criticisms focus on the fact that plants do not possess the properties traditionally a...

I threw my hat in this ring as well, trying to make sense of cases where interlocutors neither agree on what cognition is nor agree on what "things" are cognitive: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

🔥JOB: Come and work with us! The @ERC_Research MODEL TRANSFER team is expanding again: we look for a 2y postdoc with interest and skills in Digital Humanities, Digital/Computational philosophy of science; deadline: Apr 10. Contact me with any questions and share www.uni-hannover.de/en/jobs/id/7...

If you are planning on going to BSPS 2025, consider coming to the symposium that I am organizing on:"The Cognitive Importance of “Non-cognitive” Processes: Reconsidering the connection between metabolism and cognition”

I will post more details as we get closer to the conference.

On Consistently Assessing Alleged Mnemonic Systems (or, why isn’t Immune Memory “really” Memory?) - Review of Philosophy and Psychology How should we assess systems whose mnemonic status is contested? There are, for instance, debates over whether immune memory is “really” memory, or akin to memory as ordinarily attributed to human cog...

My new article "On Consistently Assessing Alleged Mnemonic Systems (or, why isn’t Immune Memory “really” Memory?)" is now out (open access):

link.springer.com/article/10.1...