PessoaBrain

Here is another way to put the paradox. If you ask, "If I had different genes, would my personality be different?" Then the answer is, "Probably, yes." If you ask, "If I had THESE genes, what would my personality be like?", the answer is, "We don't have any idea."

Receptive field properties don't change but

The feedback is highly organized anatomically

The feedback

Feedback in the brain

Looking forward to this one but thought the thalamus was basically a relay station... 😅

One possibility is to include some interactiveness in the evaluation tools. The user may introduce their strong biases so the tool needs to be a lot less acquiescent than usual chatbots that aim to please the user.
Anyway, just some thoughts.

... in minor ways. Obviously people will differ and judge it differently. That's where a human evaluator with experience and constructiveness can shine. It's a hard skill and I often catch my students/postdocs being very harsh because they can spot potential concerns.

Ex: I study threat and reward, one you want to run away from and the other you want to approach. So the question is not whether everything is matched but whether the mismatches matter, or rather the extent to which they do. A good experiment includes mismatches between conditions that only matter...

An issue that I discussed with @kordinglab.bsky.social is that of experimental control. A good experiment in theory would control for everything across conditions and only differ in the manipulation of interest. But in systems neuroscience that's not always possible.

agreed!

Are there plans to expand it to those areas??

... controversial (I already see lots of angry voices) but it has the potential to be an important tool for scientists.

Oded I tried qed on this paper of mine which is outside its area of expertise (fMRI/systems neuro). From my first pass read of the eval qed provided excellent assessment and all gaps identified were legitimate. Of 2 major gaps I would claim 1 is minor. But overall pretty amazing. Using AI will be...

Good luck saying that to a biologist/neuro person

Great quote of Rachevsky

Join us (over Zoom), won't you, for next speaker at the MIT Consciousness Club:
Rachel Denison (Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Boston University) - "Attentional Distortions of Subjective Perception"
sites.google.com/view/mit-con...

Brain–body states as a link between cardiovascular and mental health
doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...
#neuroskyence

*Subcortical regions and consciousness*

Looks like an amazing use of 7T scanners
(and generator of 7T envy)
By Morgan Cambareri, Andreas Horn, Laura Lewis, Jian Li, Brian Edlow
doi.org/10.1002/hbm....
#neuroskyence

This requires some underlying randomness to generate variation. Then you automatically get selection for configurations that persist better, which favors complex functionalities under dynamic conditions

But I'll definitely take a look at the piece.

thanks. Oh, I think it's very easy to criticize it. Even I (not a physicist) could do it! But I've been influenced by Kauffman so I thought it was stimulating.

In its present form one can't really compute the measures they propose, in fact, probably not possible in principle. In any case, very provocative.
@wiringthebrain.bsky.social you might enjoy if haven't seen yet.

Thanks to @sammanleyartist.bsky.social for sharing it in his excellent substack.
manlius.substack.com

𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗹𝗮𝘄𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺𝘀?
Thought-provoking piece on properties of systems.
Including the Law of Increasing Functional Information, which applies to both biological and non-biological systems.
Physicists will probably not like this at all...
doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
#complexity

7 reasons to use Bayesian inference!
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/10/11/7...

𝗔 𝗡𝗘𝗨𝗥𝗢𝗘𝗖𝗢𝗟𝗢𝗚𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗟 𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗣𝗘𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗩𝗘 𝗢𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗙𝗥𝗢𝗡𝗧𝗔𝗟 𝗖𝗢𝗥𝗧𝗘𝗫
By Mars and Passingham
"Understanding anthropoid foraging challenges may thus contribute to our understanding of human cognition"
Going to the top of the reading list!
doi.org/10.1016/j.ne...
#neuroskyence

If a group crystallizes I'd be very happy to participate!

Accurate.

#academia #academy #philsky #philosophysky #philosophy #science

How modern “now-ism“ can accelerate crises in climate, finance and ecosystems Slowing change may be our last line of defense

Can tipping points be predicted?

Wonderful short post about the dynamics of tipping points in complex systems.
With great references.

open.substack.com/pub/manlius/...

Right, excellent point. Let's write a paper like that 😀