Marcin Miłkowski

Does functional connectivity explain? - Synthese Many successful explanations show how causally individuated parts are responsible for the occurrence of the phenomena that scientists seek to explain. On this view, parts that are chosen only by convention, and related only through correlations, cannot possibly figure in successful explanations. This is because without some form of causal grounding, it seems unintelligible why any explanatory relation between these parts and the phenomenon of interest would hold. This problem is particularly pronounced in functional connectivity models (FC) in neuroscience. These models typically represent time series of recurrent neural activity in conventionally determined spatial regions (as a network’s nodes) and synchronization likelihoods among these time series (as its edges). Many neuroscientists and philosophers maintain that because of this, FC models cannot provide explanations. We formulate this problem more precisely and then show that it rests on an impoverished interpretation of scientific models in general and FC models in particular. We then provide a positive account of how FC models provide a variety of neuroscientific explanations.

My paper with Kareem Khalifa "Does functional connectivity explain?" is now published in open access in Synthese: shorturl.at/vqOjq
@philsci.bsky.social @epsaphilsci.bsky.social @hoposjournal.bsky.social @ishpssb.bsky.social @danisbassett.bsky.social @nunetsi.bsky.social @sfiscience.bsky.social

GitHub - milekpl/kindle-pdf-annotator Contribute to milekpl/kindle-pdf-annotator development by creating an account on GitHub.

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Open source: github.com/milekpl/kind...

An image showing Hunyanimage 3.0 providing an image of a saucer on top of a cup.

One test to show that text-to-image models are not properly compositional was to ask them to picture a saucer on a cup. They would always put a cup on a saucer (reflecting the training data, obviously). Until today. This is now solved.

Today, we have the second day of the workshop, and it's not reassuring...

transcen- ?

What Will Academia.edu Do with Its New Rights to Your Name, Likeness, and Voice? - Daily Nous Users of the Academia.edu service are cancelling their subscriptions in response to perceived overreach by the firm in its recent update to its terms of service. Catching users' attention was a new pa...

A popular online service for academics is claiming an irrevocable right to use its subscribers' voice, signature, photograph, likeness, etc., "in any manner"...

Amnesia and Identity Workshop Schedule 24 & 25 September 2025 Day 1 — Wednesday 24 September Pathfoot Building, University of Stirling (Room C22) what3words: ///mascot.wedding.daunted Join online (stream opens 10 minutes be…

The full schedule is now online for Amnesia and Identity with Carl Craver (24–25 Sept, University of Stirling + online).
Sessions feature Shayna Rosenbaum, Michael Kopelman, Clare Rathbone, Rachael Elward, Catherine Loveday and more.
🔗 placememory.net/amnesia-and-...

5 More Faculty, Staff Removed for Kirk Comments Republican politicians and other conservatives are calling for employees, including those in higher ed, to be terminated for their social media posts about Kirk's killing.

www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

The free speech crusade will continue until complete conformity and submission are achieved.

it rocks that my profession is so dedicated to lying about Kirk that his gutter bigot friends like Jack Posobiec get uncritical CNN spots, while Attiah gets fired for accurately quoting Kirk

What the UK government should do:
-> disable X in the UK
-> sue Musk
-> make his companies' life in UK a living hell
-> crack down on Robinson and his thugs

What the UK government will do:
-> "yes, we are aware of the valid citizen concerns"
-> more xenophobic crap
-> stay on X and do nothing

Conjecture: Labour, as the soulless, vapid, empty shell of a party it has become, depends on an army of consultants to do their comms. However these consultancy agencies are ran by bunch of fascists. These people found a surefire way to destroy the party by feeding them extreme right talking points.

Really great symposium led by Emily Sullivan, with Michael Franke (@meanwhileina.bsky.social) and Bojana Grujičić on "LLMs and Human Reasoning"
#ESPP2025 IFiS PAN, Warsaw

Cameron Buckner delivers a keynote (Pałac Staszica, Warsaw 2025)

@cameronbuckner.bsky.social delivers his keynote on reasoning LLMs during #ESPP2025

Nora Newcombe in the Hall of Mirrors (Staszic Palace, Warsaw 2025)

@noranewcombe.bsky.social delivers her keynote on cognitive maps and graphs #ESPP2025

enshittification | noun | when a digital platform is made worse for users, in order to increase profits

Emma Borg in the Hall of Mirrors (Palace of Staszic)

Emma Borg has a keynote on heuristics and reasons #ESPP2025

Petra Schumacher in the Hall of Mirrors (Palace of Staszic, Warsaw) opens ESPP 2025

Petra Schumacher opens #ESPP2025 in Warsaw with her keynote lecture on meaning extension

Yes it is

Just registered for PSA Around the World Eastern Europe. Hope you do too! Organised by @philsci.bsky.social with @eenphilsci.bsky.social this online conference over three afternoons in November covers the past and the present of #philsci in Eastern n Central Europe (where it arguably started!)

Marcin Miłkowski in a very fancy university hall

That's me, delivering my keynote lecture during #EPSA25, introducing the idea of the functional atlas of theories. The conference was a blast! (Photo courtesy @bartoszradomski.bsky.social)

#epsa25 event commemorating @helendecruz.net @epsaphilsci.bsky.social

Congratulations to the newly elected president of @epsaphilsci.bsky.social, @cdutilhnovaes.bsky.social!

You can now download a book of abstracts of ESPP 2025 (PDF or EPUB) here: espp2025.ifispan.edu.pl/programme

After a few not-so-successful rounds with reviewers who don’t really buy into the idea of a normative digital philosophy of science, we (with @mmilkowski.bsky.social) decided to write something to fill that gap – and to show that digital research also has normative potential.

A real game-changer!

ESPP 2025 registration is open

I added the online programme for our ESPP 2025 website. You can customize your agenda and print it with your chosen talks :) espp2025.ifispan.edu.pl/programme

She was a legend. I compulsively, compulsorily, and committedly cite her.

www.tandfonline.com/eprint/FPBS3...

Thrilled to share my new commentary 'The Interface Mind' in Philosophical Psychology—symposium on Nick Shea's *Concepts at the Interface*! Concepts as interfaces bridging general reasoning & specialized sims solve integration puzzles (e.g., Nanay's imagery). Advances computational mind theories! 1/2

School of Ideas in Neuroscience 2025 Dates: September 8-13, 2025, Warsaw, Poland The applications are open until July 21, 2025 (midnight anywhere on Earth). To apply, please fill the form: GOOGLE FORM Please be aware that since the Sc…

More info and the registration from can be found here - nenckiopenlab.org/the-school-o...