Fluffy Cyborg, IInd of the name

Book cover of "The Riddle of Organismal Agency: New Historical and Philosophical Reflections" (Routledge, 2024). The book belongs to the "History and Philosophy of Biology" series. The editors are Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda, Jan Baedke, Guido I. Prieto, and Gregory Radick. The design features a geometric pattern of interlocking, multicolored triangles and rectangular prisms in shades of red, yellow, teal, white, and pink. The Routledge logo appears in the lower right corner.

Still puzzled by the debate on organismal agency? Our edited collection brings historians, philosophers, and scientists into dialogue—offering a wide array of perspectives. An affordable paperback edition will be out at the end of the month! www.routledge.com/The-Riddle-o... #HPS #evobio #philsky

pro writing tip: always start the day by addressing a minor administrative task so that you’re in a bad mood when you begin your actual work

Lol

Ready for a PhD modelling climate-financial cascading events?

Develop a novel Agent-Based Model to simulate cascading climate uncertainties & transform global risk assessment.

Join a unique Leeds/IIASA team. #ClimateRisk #ABM @envleeds.bsky.social @yrcss.bsky.social @comses.net

To be fair, most of CogSci have moved from "Language of Thought" / uber-computational theory of mind and towards (more or less well applied) embodied, enactive models a long while ago 😅

Screenshot of the title page of an article published in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition titled: "Cognitive Control Is Task Specific: Further Evidence Against the Idea of Domain-General Conflict Adaptation."

The ability to ignore distracting information may be more task-specific than general. That suggests successfully ignoring distractors in one context doesn't mean someone automatically be good at it in another context. psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?d... #PsychSciSky #AcademicSky #EduSky

It's that time of year when many start thinking about applying for PhDs. If you're applying for a UK PhD position, here is a blog post I wrote a while back that might be helpful

#cognition #psychscisky #neuroskyence #psychjobs

If you're interested in the cognitive neuroscience of memory feel free to email me!

I do experimental psychology, brain imaging (fMRI and MEG) and a bit of modelling. Lab is doing stuff on forgetting, aging, schemas, and event boundaries, but we're not limited to that.

#psychscisky #neuroskyence

📣 Germany's close to reversing its opposition to mass surveillance & private message scanning, & backing the Chat Control bill. This could end private comms-& Signal-in the EU.

Time's short and they're counting on obscurity: please let German politicians know how horrifying their reversal would be.

Just a few years ago, it seemed implausible to run an energy system dominated by renewable energy. Even today, that narrative still pops up from time to time.
Yet we are doing it now. And tomorrow we will do it even better.

It may have escaped your attention, but the Belgian energy system has quietly passed an important test. During the weekend of 4-5 October 2025, our consumption was almost entirely covered by renewable energy. And yet the system ticked like a Swiss watch. /

Finishing the ALife & Society session, Jeremy Pitt introduced a model to characterize mortality, a universal property of living systems which sometimes doesn't receive enough attention as it should be.

#ALIFE2025

OK, but what's the phase transition ?

I have no satisfying response to that response, and I'm strongly inclined to think there is none:

Guénin–Carlut, Avel. 2020. “Cognition in eco, cognition in vitro - Mesure, explication, et contextualité en sciences cognitives.” OSF Preprints. doi.org/10.31219/osf....

If you’re thinking what I’m thinking please explain.

Some may express it with what we'd view as respect for the autonomy of women, some with infantilization, some with dehumanisation and the kind of brutal domination described in the article

Then, what does it even mean to ask whether there is a common underlying instinct?

IMO this discussion speaks of the great methodological tension at the core of Evo psy.

*If* there is anything like an universal, evolved protectiveness towards women, that wouldn't preclude it being contextualised and expressed differently in different cultures.

Agreed

(TW: *graphic* description of sexual and physical abuse in the article linked)

C'est vrai, mais pas dans le sens voulu 😂

Now Stavros Anagnou explores a solution for the institution bootstrapping problem, or why despite their benefits institutions need a critical mass of participants to form. His results show that for a diverse community there are less costs for creating institutions.

#ALIFE2025

Alt added

Wrong: a manosphere is the manovolume with the highest volume-to-area ratio, and therefore cools the slowest.

Manophysics matters, folks !

Autism Is Not a Single Condition and Has No Single Cause, Scientists Conclude Research reveals that those diagnosed with autism early show distinct genetic and developmental profiles from those diagnosed later.

Autism Is Not a Single Condition and Has No Single Cause, Scientists Conclude www.wired.com/story/autism...

How is criticality implemented here ? Tuning average activation transfer to one ?

Spain’s Renewable-Energy Boom Loosens Gas’s Grip on Power Prices Soaring renewables output in Spain is weakening gas’s grip on electricity prices, setting the country apart from much of Europe where fossil fuels still dictate the cost of power.

"Spain’s rapid renewables build-out means its power prices were set by fossil generation just 19% of the time, down from 75% in 2019. As a result, wholesale electricity was almost a third cheaper than the EU average"

Imagine having cheaper power

Gift link: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Asylum hotel provider makes £180m profit despite claims of inedible food and rationed loo paper Asylum seekers and charities tell BBC of

Finally!!! The real scandal of the asylum hotels. Why, instead of shining the light on these parasites, months were spent on demonising vulnerable people at their mercy?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

part of the reason the deontological principle of “don’t be cruel to language models because it makes you a worse person” is salient to me is because i am a poster and i have noticed how certain types of posting affect my cognition, in good and bad ways

Part of the difficulty with discussing AI on bluesky, or really any environment today, is that most people simply have no background in cognitive science or AI. To them, AI is simply the large mega corporations that have commercialized generative AI.

I see strong reasons to dismiss the later but still