Matthew Sims

What can slime mould teach us about biological memory? | Aeon Essays Certain slime moulds can make decisions, solve mazes and remember things. What can we learn from the blob?

Hi Sam, thanks for sharing! This is some interesting convergence aeon.co/essays/what-...

A wonderful article on work (both old and new) pushing the frontier of memory research.

Philosophy of Biology Welcome to Cambridge Core

Here's your chance to download not only my book 'Slime Mould and Philosophy' , but download ALL the books in Cambridge Elements Philosophy of Biology series from the 20th to the 25th of July for FREE! I highly recommend Jan Baedke's (2025) book 'The Organism'.
cup.org/4kEgivL
#ISHPSSB #philosophy

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.

What can slime mould teach us about biological memory? | Aeon Essays Certain slime moulds can make decisions, solve mazes and remember things. What can we learn from the blob?

aeon.co/essays/what-...

More on C.H. Waddington at the KLI.

More documentation of the wonderful talks at the 43rd Annual Altenberg Workshop at Konrad Lorenz Institute this last week.

More theoretical biology and C.H. Waddington at the KLI. More to come.

Theoretical biology at the KLI.

#HistBio and #HistMed people: You can still send your abstracts for FoGeL 2025! 🐋🌱

Highly recommend!

Poster for event with 9 photos of speakers in circles. Conference details and link: Schedule Friday, May 2nd All events to take place at the Metcalf Science Center, Room 117 590 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA 02215 9:30-10:00 a.m. Breakfast, Welcome and Opening Remarks, Rachell Powell (Boston University) 10:15-11:30 a.m. “Mirror, Mirror, Off the Wall: Rethinking Human Intuitive Physics Through Animals,” Marta Halina (University of Cambridge) 11:45-1:00 p.m. “Dehumanizing the Mind-Body Problem,” Carrie Figdor (University of Iowa) 1:00-2:30 p.m. Lunch 2:30-3:45 p.m. “Why error is more interesting than success and failure for comparative psychology,” Aliya Rumana (University of Pittsburgh) 4:00-5:15 p.m. “Decentering the Human in Medical Science: A Cautionary Tale of Two Concepts,” Rachell Powell (Boston University) 6:30 p.m. Conference dinner Saturday, May 3rd 9:30-10:00 a.m. Breakfast, Welcome and Opening Remarks, Rachell Powell (Boston University) 10:15-11:30 a.m. “Can we go against human nature?,” Grant Ramsey (KU Leuven) 11:45-1:00 p.m. “Cooperation, Cognition, and the Elusive Role of Joint Agency,” Patrick Forber (Tufts University) 1:00 p.m. Lunch

Upcoming Boston Colloquium for Philosophy of Science: Decentering the Human in Human Sciences on Friday, May 2nd and Saturday, May 3rd. Free and open to the public. Speakers include @martahalina.bsky.social & @grantramsey.bsky.social #philsci
www.bu.edu/cphs/colloqu...

Title and abstract of the paper "Biological Mistakes: What They Are and What They Mean for the Experimental Biologist" by David S. Oderberg, Jonathan Hill, Christopher Austin, Ingo Bojak, François Cinotti and Jonathan M. Gibbins. Find the paper here: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/724444

Join us Monday at 4pm (CET) for our next Reading Group session! 📖🧠
We’ll be discussing "Biological Mistakes: What They Are and What They Mean for the Experimental Biologist" by David Oderberg et al., published in @thebjps.bsky.social.
Just email jan.baedke[at]rub.de for the meeting details!
#HPBio

Anthropic can now track the bizarre inner workings of a large language model What the firm found challenges some basic assumptions about how this technology really works.

www.technologyreview.com/2025/03/27/1...

Plasticity and the evolution of group-level regulation of cellular differentiation in the volvocine algae | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences During the evolution of multicellularity, the unit of selection transitions from single cells to integrated multicellular cell groups, necessitating the evolution of group-level traits such as somatic...

My new paper examining how plasticity may have shaped the evolution of cellular differentiation is out! We propose that the plastic development of somatic-like cells may have been an intermediate step in the evolution of soma in the volvocine algae. #evosky #mevosky doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

Eugenics, statistical hubris, and unknowable unknowns in human genetics A new paper just out in Nature , by Peter Visscher and colleagues (including bio-ethicist Julian Salvulescu) explores the idea of polygenic...

A very well argued and thought provoking blogpost by
@wiringthebrain.bsky.social

www.wiringthebrain.com/2025/01/euge...

YouTube video by IAS Research Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda - On the Prospects of Basal Cognition Research Becoming Fully Evolutionary

Last Friday, I had a lot of fun presenting my joint work with @philosobio.bsky.social on basal cognition research at UPV/EHU. Thanks a lot to @ias-research.bsky.social for the invitation! The recording is available here: youtu.be/GTzaRhwilIM?... 📃👇 link.springer.com/article/10.1... #philsci #cogsky

Pretty excited by this new addition to the bookshelf...

Which you can add to your own bookshelf here:
www.amazon.com/Drive-Surviv...
Or download for *free* here: direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...

YouTube video by EES Update Evolution Evolving: Panel Discussion

Anybody interested in a deeper dive into our 'Evolution Evolving' book may like to watch this 1-hr panel discussion and Q&A conducted by @drlynnchiu.bsky.social with the authors.

Relationship to EES, process thinking, maths modeling approaches and more are discussed

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd2M...

This is fantastic in many ways and, of course, timely. Thank you for sharing.

New Report Examines AI Companions in Health and Mental Wellbeing - LCFI A report published by The Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI) explores the growing role of AI companions in healthcare and mental wellbeing. The report entitled AI Companions for He...

A new report just released by the CFI explores the growing role of AI companions in healthcare and mental wellbeing. Co-authored by Dr Tomasz Hollanek and Dr Aisha Sobey the report outlines opportunities, risks and policy implications.

Genes, culture, and scientific racism On-demand video platform giving you access to lectures from conferences worldwide.

Indispensable, information rich talk from @kevinlala.bsky.social . Should be watched by anyone doing #genetics, #evolution, or race studies. Maybe I’ll share some thoughts later. #sts #philbio #hps

underline.io/lecture/1051...

LLMs and World Models, Part 1 How do Large Language Models Make Sense of Their “Worlds”?

Do large language models develop "emergent" models of the world? My latest Substack posts explore this claim and more generally the nature of "world models":

LLMs and World Models, Part 1: aiguide.substack.com/p/llms-and-w...

LLMs and World Models, Part 2: aiguide.substack.com/p/llms-and-w...

If you could send me an email at matthew.sims-m4e(at)RUB.de, I'd be more than happy to send the pdf to you.

Thanks, sent!

If you provide me with an email address, I'll send the pdf to you. Thanks for your interest.

Slime Mould and Philosophy Cambridge Core - Philosophy: General Interest - Slime Mould and Philosophy

Although I was not given funding to publish this OA, if anyone (or any one that you know) would like a pdf of the book, shoot me a message. I'd be more than happy to send it your way. www.cambridge.org/core/element...

Screenshot showing the title and publication details of the article 'On the Prospects of Basal Cognition Research Becoming Fully Evolutionary: Promising Avenues and Cautionary Notes' by Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda and Matthew Sims, published in the journal 'History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences.'

Is basal cognition research on the right track? Drawing parallels with the #evo-devo approach to the #evolution of development, @philosobio.bsky.social & I argue in our new 📝 that it exhibits both promise & potential hurdles in studying cognitive evolution👇 link.springer.com/article/10.1... #philsci

On the prospects of basal cognition research becoming fully evolutionary: promising avenues and cautionary notes - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences The research programme ‘basal cognition’ adopts an evolutionary perspective for studying biological cognition. This entails investigating possible cognitive processes in ‘simple’–often non-neuronal–or...

Fresh off the press: I'm absolutely thrilled to share this paper that I had the honour of developing and co-authoring with the excellent Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda. link.springer.com/article/10.1...