Proud of this review with
@AlisonGopnik
! -
'The development of human causal learning and reasoning'
- now available here:
@NatRevPsych
We review the development of human-unique causal understanding from an 'interventionist' perspective, outlining
We went ice skating and I had a blast but he kept falling & got progressively more emo about it, muttering something about "constant conjunction" and "no necessary connection"
This looks like a fantastic resource-
"In search for an alternative to the computer metaphor of the mind and brain"
Eight author groups consider alternatives to "mind as computer", focusing on the 4 questions highlighted below
Anyone have a rec for papers that treat the ontological status of attractors ? And/or questions re: "causation" (both 'within' and 'as the result of') them? Thanks!
After six months of sporadic self study I’m finally taking the plunge into formal German language courses.
Doing it for Frege, Wittgenstein, Leibniz, Kant, and my partner’s family.
Auf geht’s!
"The Practicality of Metaphysics," by Frédéric Ferré, is one of the papers I most often reread. It's 10 pages long and completely lovely. ("Metaphysical theories can be well or poorly made, more or less elegant, inspiring, strong, or beautiful..." )
What is your take on metaphysics?
On one take, metaphysics provides grounding and is therefore explanatory. Grounding is fundamental, so you don't really explain anything without metaphysics.
On another take, by declaring fundamentals & primitives, metaphysics ends explanation.
Could anyone 🙏please break down
(or recommend a well-researched source that breaks down)
the **actual difference** between
“ENACTIVE”
vs.
“ECOLOGICAL”
vs.
“EMBODIED”
approaches to cognition?
These terms are used SO promiscuously
I cannot be the only person w/this question
Loved this 2006 introduction to behavioral dynamics, a theoretical framework that integrates an information-based approach to perception with a dynamical systems approach to action:
Analytic philosophy puts agents at the center of "action theory." Mercedes Valmisa's "Adapting: A Chinese Philosophy of Action" (
@OUPPhilosophy
, 2021) reframes actions as agent-environment collaborations. Simply accurate.
Overview: ; summary/quotes below
Once at a Berkeley Thanksgiving I sat next to a SETI astrobiologist.
I asked:
“What’s the most promising direction in the search for alien life?”
They replied, immediately:
“I think we should spend a lot more time trying to talk to whales.”
I think about this all the time.
What's your preferred way of pinpointing *exactly* what's wrong with declarations of LLM cognition?
My current thinking on this topic starts with the "biological exchange relation." Speaking generally (i.e., setting aside special cases like hibernation, dormancy etc), living
1/
Today I listened for the 3rd time in as many months to Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
@ayanaeliza
&
@kristatippett
on my favorite podcast, On Being
@onbeing
re: Climate Change, Johnson prompts us to imagine,
"What if we get this RIGHT?"
link + transcript:
The best part of having independent research funds for the first time is, BY FAR: being able to order fancy books I’ve had as shitty PDFs for years and hold them in my hands 🥹
#academicchristmas
What exactly does it mean to claim, "The nature of the universe is fundamentally mathematical," or
"The universe is written in the language of mathematics"?
What's the difference between these two claims, and on what grounds would one resist (both or either of) them?
Ok I'm going to try it with pictures/stories instead of arguing it. Tell me if it helps!
---
Here's the view I'm trying to sell you:
COGNITION is a biological process; it's something only organisms have.
LLMs are not organisms.
∴ LLMs don't have COGNITION.
1/
@marielgoddu
Thanks!
(Disclaimer: I don’t think LLMs are at all conscious.)
I think I still haven’t really gotten your point about why “Is it conscious” should be a valid q only when applied to living things. I’ll have to read the thread a few more times to see why I haven’t gotten it yet.
DISI 2021 was the 1st place I publicly admitted I wanted to switch from research to philosophy 🫣
Everyone cheered 🥲
2 yrs later I have a philosophy fellowship & PhD position & am the happiest I’ve ever been.
APPLY TO DISI‼️👇👇👇
INSPIRING FUN MINDBENDING SUPPORTIVE EMPOWERING
📣📣 Applications for DISI 2023 are still open! If you are a scholar or storyteller interested in the nature, origins, and future of intelligences, please consider joining us.
Review of applications begins soon (Feb 13)!
**Please share widely!**
What's your preferred way of pinpointing *exactly* what's wrong with declarations of LLM cognition?
My current thinking on this topic starts with the "biological exchange relation." Speaking generally (i.e., setting aside special cases like hibernation, dormancy etc), living
1/
This thread is so cool & lovely!
It also makes me wish it were usual for philosophical writings to include simple figures/cartoons alongside the text. This would increase both
1. fun, &
2. accessibility/ease for philosophers with (e.g.) dyslexia, adhd, working mem issues etc
Really proud of this paper!
By adapting a standard experimental task to increase species-appropriateness, we find that chimpanzees consider multiple possibilities when protecting valued resources (🍌) from a competitor.
@JanEngelmann5
's thread below⬇️
More evidence that chimpanzees reason about different possibilities!
Using a new paradigm, we found that chimpanzees prepare for alternative possible outcomes. Paper out
@royalsociety
Here is Okech protecting two possible targets from a competitor
1/5
Using
@edyong209
's "An Immense World" as an intro to Sensory Ecology... What a gift!
"The first step to understanding another animal's Umwelt is to understand what it uses its senses *for* "
(p. 61)
Printing this out and putting it on my office wall- thanks so much
@rmnth
, & RIP Dennett. I saw him give a talk only once - on Zoom at an
@sfiscience
workshop in 2021 - but I think about it all the time. It was about the difference between learned vs. instinctual behaviors. If I
As I prepare to deliver my last empirical project into safe collaborator hands, I'm laughing out loud at an RA's notes from the trenches of a pilot study with 24-month-olds.
💟 you, Developmental Psychology!
Big ups to anyone out there hustling for data this fine Sunday👶
This cool new work suggests that we attend to different features of physical objects depending on the context/task at hand (e.g., recognizing an object vs. reasoning about its dynamics in motion):
1/
I'm compiling a list of readings re: "The Evolution of Agency", broadly construed.
What's missing?
===========
*Arnellos & Moreno (2015) Multicellular agency: An organizational view.
*Bermúdez (2007) Thinking without words
*Burge (2009) Primitive agency and natural norms
SEP telling me "Functionalism" originates in Aristotle's conception of the soul. When did the biology drop out?!
Did 20th cent. functionalists ever defend the assumption that the idea of "role [a 'mental state'] plays in the system" is sensible without
1/
re: "Live Into Your Weird"––
I just learned about Thomas Thwaites, who designed a custom exoskeleton and lived as a goat for a week in the Alps. He ate grass and made one goat friend.
NPR article (2016):
@birchlse
Thank you for writing this! And, wow, so cool that it's open access 🙌. Just downloaded & cannot wait to read it carefully.
One question I have: can you point me to the part of the book where you defend the idea that 'AI' could develop the capacity for 'valenced experience'?
Further evidence that developmental psychologists are the best people on the planet-
"[U]sing a mini skateboard designed to enable newborns to move..."
We locked ~100 neuroscientists in a building somewhere near the Potomac river and asked them what they thought about Representational Drift.
Here’s how they leaned on the Philosophical, Mechanistic and Practical levels:
WOW I had no idea I needed to read Goethe but now it’s an emergency! This is my religion
Zur Morphology sounds great - What else is “greatest hits”? (specifically on topics surrounding transformation /the nature & impermanence of form )
"What has been formed is immediately transformed again, & if we would succeed, to some degree, to a living view of Nature, we must attempt to remain as active & as plastic as the example she sets for us."
-Goethe (Zur Morphologie)
Hot take: That Marr passage that computational cognitive scientists love to quote––
"[T]rying to understand perception by studying only neurons is like trying to understand bird flight by studying only feathers: It just cannot be done."
––is a deeply unimaginative way of
For
#InternationalWomensDay
- Wouldn't it be badass if academic parents listed kids on their CVs, along with all of their other major accomplishments?
Lastname, Parent1 & Lastname, Parent2 (2023). Babyfirstname Babylastname. 7lbs 8oz.
(mom = 1st author, obbbviously)
I recently googled a role model & was devastated to find this on her CV.💔
Can we create a culture where childbearing🤰🤱 is seen not as a weakness, but celebrated & honored for what it is: the FOUNDATION of human society (/species)?!
#InternationalWomensDay
on a par with digestion, respiration, etc. That is: whatever COGNITION (=catchall for "mental" terms, including consciousness) is, in the natural cases we accept*, is fundamentally something that PLAYS A ROLE IN KEEPING THE ORGANISM ALIVE.
--
*humans, dogs, chimps, etc.
6/
When I publish my first philosophy paper, I'm going to make it available in at least 3 formats.
1. Paper
2. Audio recording of paper
3. Handout/cliffs notes version of paper, possibly illustrated (or animated slides).
It is going to be so fucking accessible
“This shit is Art”
Have been thinking about “cognitive processes” & “cognitive functioning” in the context of other familiar biological processes— So I was thrilled to learn about Cloaca, a large art installation that turns food into feces (link below)
It’s AI for digestion!
What is the Philosophy equivalent of GitHub ()? Do we have one?
i.e., Is there a conventional platform for making resources related to research & teaching
publicly available/sharable/accessible?
If not: Wouldn't that be awesome?
The "reality as machine" paradigm is a 19th century hangover, causing great havoc today. Embracing alternative paradigms, such as "Reality as Garden", leads to saner outcomes.
I’m 🔁 this because I think it’s a complex and important conversation—ty,
@FeministPhilos
, for starting it. My own thoughts are in the thread, but in short I think we’d all do well to be generally respectful + non-judgmental of ways people choose to express & portray their bodies
I understand why women are drawn to these "what philosophers are supposed to look like/what they really look like" trends, but it still frustrates me that many women, even when they're trying to make a feminist point, still end up centering their aesthetic appeal/attractiveness!
Philosophy is the fundamentally creative work of offering new ways to look at the familiar. It is the work of reframing, reorganizing, & reorienting. To criticize philosophy by scientific standards (e.g., utility in "asking & answering questions") is to misunderstand philosophy.
Ok, I think a better way to try to say this point is: the nature of human concepts make it so that (so many) questions in philosophy never have answers. They're not even really questions.
I’d like to understand concept of “COUPLING” (as in complex systems/ DST/ ecological psych) in:
-as precise & scientifically informed a way possible,
-as quickly as possible (need for a deadline)
What do you recommend? All media (videos, articles, images, analogies) welcome
themselves *dependent on the exchange* to continue being what they are (& thus, for the whole organism to continue being what IT is).
One consequence of a 'biology-first' metaphysical approach to "mind" is that we're forced to recognise COGNITION as a biological process,
5/
re: “Making Things Happen”-
Here’s a cool visualization of geometric growth in a chain reaction. One domino can knock over another ~1.5x larger (smallest is 5mm; largest is >1m & weighs ~45kg)
Causal cascades are common in nature yet little discussed in “causation” literature
I’m on the hunt for literature that addresses the question how to delineate the [spatiotemporal] “boundaries” of a causal process /mechanism — does anyone have any recs/refs?
It’s in the context of wanting to build an argument that some mechanisms can be “extended” (non-local)
Who are your favorite "writerly voices" in philosophy?
Here are three top passages of mine (from a writing standpoint*)––funny, concrete, & eminently CLEAR.
1. Ferré ("The practicality of metaphysics")
2. Davidson ("Rational animals")
3. Thompson ("The representation of life")
Stated as simply as a positive argument:
COGNITION is a biological process; it's something only organisms have/do.
LLMs are not organisms.
∴ LLMs don't have/do COGNITION.
14/
📢Interdisciplinary Public Service Announcement:
Calling your model/theory/method "FOUNDATIONAL" "FUNDAMENTAL" "CORE" or "DEEP" does not, in fact, make your model/theory/method foundational, fundamental, core, or deep.
“Representation” might be the term that gives me the biggest philosophical “uh oh feeling”—
you know like the kind they teach you about as a kid so you don’t get in a van with a stranger
Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Ludwig Wittgenstein! (26 April 1889 - 29 April 1951)
I’ve always felt moved by the fact that LW’s last philosophical writing was completed 2 days before his painful death. Whatever you may think about his philosophy: wow. Gotta hand it to him for that.
@FeministPhilos
1/
I agree with your point: I think that it’s generally true (and tragic) that women everywhere are socialized to highlight their attractiveness as a means of attaining power/attention. At the same time, re: this photo in particular-
How many people—and *ESPECIALLY* academics,
@AlisonGopnik
Summary thread here, for those interested:
The link is open access, but only to read (not download). If you're stuck behind a paywall feel free to send me a message!
(
@AlisonGopnik
- If 'great': only because of my epic philosopher-psychologist advisor!!)
Proud of this review with
@AlisonGopnik
! -
'The development of human causal learning and reasoning'
- now available here:
@NatRevPsych
We review the development of human-unique causal understanding from an 'interventionist' perspective, outlining
Below are some sources that have influenced my thinking on this topic. Please add others- either to support the position I've outlined or resist it! Happy to be convinced otherwise.
-Hans Jonas's The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology
15/
One current popular cartoon of COGNITION says it's abstract, formal, and substrate-independent - something that could be implemented on a computer.
But to mistake that _cartoon_ for what COGNITION *really is* is a category error.
COGNITION is a biological process!
13/
Baja California was the perfect place to begin Endless Forms Most Beautiful,
@SeanBiolCarroll
’s joyful introduction to Evo-Devo 🙌
What should I read next?
I’m interested in questions re: “causation” & “information” in evolution & development, and will read any literature
@FeministPhilos
3/
wasn’t that the more general point of the meme? I.e., “You may be surprised / We don’t look like what you think”?
To critique this person’s chosen mode of self expression by saying “Ugh, she was trying to look hot as a means of being empowered, and isn’t that bad and
organisms depend on constant exchange of matter/energy with the environment to continue being what they are. (In the words of mid-1900s philosopher of biology Hans Jonas, to be an organism is: "to keep going.")
Crucially, the structures that enable this exchange to occur are
2/
First ever Philosophy workshop!!🤘Deer-in-the-headlights look here, but I promise it was wildly fun.
Thanks to 🙌
@AndraMeneganzin
, James DiFrisco & Grant Ramsey for organizing
#TraitsofContention
!
🦋🪲🦒
Love the juxtaposition of Gibson quote below w/ this image from the hot "new homunculus" paper.
In what senses or contexts is it
1) *right* to think about organisms as "self-puppeteering" ?
2) *wrong* to think about organisms as their own "authorities" or "commanders"?
"The rules that govern behavior are not like laws enforced by an authority or decisions made by a commander; 𝑏𝑒ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑠 𝑟𝑒𝑔𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑟 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑟𝑒𝑔𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑. The question is how this can be."
- James
#Gibson
I haven't read any Hegel but it cracks me up that nearly anywhere he's mentioned there's this subtext of guilty confession/begrudging admission
(even for C.S. Peirce, apparently!)
@FeministPhilos
8/8
look like” but also about “what bodies look like.” I wouldn’t choose to do it personally but I respect it, and I think it’s reductive to say/assume that OP was “just trying to look good” or “just trying to look as femininely attractive as possible.”
Actually, she’s v “ballsy”
"This thought experiment was based on a series of preliminary ponderings & pilot musings conducted 3 months prior. Results will be evaluated in terms of the number & severity of objections raised in discussion & writing over the next 500 years."
Elizabeth Anscombe
Simone de Beauvoir
Marie Curie
Joan Didion
Jane Goodall
Henrietta Herz
Dorothy Hodgkin
Grace Hopper
Hypatia
Mae Jemison
Ada Lovelace
Maria Montessori
Toni Morrison
Iris Murdoch
Emmy Noether
Sally Ride
Nina Simone
Theodora
Gladys West
Virginia Woolf
WangZhenyi
I'm about to start my first real philosophical project. I
HAVE✅:
-a question I want to frame
-a rough idea of where I'm going/who might care, &
-an initial list of sources. I
DO NOT HAVE😬:
-any idea about how to organize my research process.
Who has tips/resources?
Whitehead seems to cash it out in the ultimate-ness of “concrescence” and “creativity” in the universe—- which is maybe closer to what’s interesting to me (the singular newness of each ‘moment’, whatever a moment is)
choose to think that the question "what nervous systems are for" should be answered in terms of coordinating sensorimotor loops (see, e.g., Cisek, 2019 or Godfrey-Smith, 2016), organising muscle tissue (e.g. Keijzer et al., 2013), or something else. It's an open theoretical
10/
What note-taking / -consolidating technologies do people use to stay organized? I highlight texts with the fervor of a medieval monk & I know I can streamline myself but just don’t know how
(Are Remarkables worth it?)
@FeministPhilos
2/
who are so often conservatively/prudishly & crucially, _unreflectively_ body-ashamed and/or disconnected, regardless of gender !!
—would be brave enough to post a photo of themselves shirtless, anywhere?!
It’s bold, and norm-defying, and yes, attention grabbing… but
@codydroux
1 This is porn
2 I'm terrifically uninformed, but here's a stab at what you're pointing to:
The proper objects of 'topology' are the 'product'
(colloquially /genealogically-historically/ foundationally-derivatively [?] speaking)
of: Stable dynamical patterns.
Hot or cold?
-Paul Cisek's "Resynthesizing behavior through phylogenetic refinement"
-Fred Keijzer's work on the "skin-brain" hypothesis, e.g.:
-Pamela Lyon et al.'s work on 'basal cognition', e.g.,
17/
The “mind’s ability to mold the past into a particular story” rests (in part) on the accrual of attentional saliencies, each (in part) the product of present-context “stories” about what’s going on this moment
Choosing what to *attend* to is the seat of human freedom
#hottake
"Through its progression, the poem suggests that our power to shape events comes not from choices made in the material world—in an autumn stand of birches—but from the mind’s ability to mold the past into a particular story."
Taking COGNITION to be essentially a matter of (e.g.) quickly returning correct answers to symbolic queries is like taking CIRCULATION to be essentially a matter of fluids moving in a circle making whooshing noises.
Or: Haphazardly extracting features/processes from a
11/
issue.
Regardless of how we answer it, though, the idea that we should think there is anything meaningful about a concept of COGNITION--the natural process that nervous systems do--*outside of living systems* (E.g., in computers) - is a deep metaphysical mistake.
11/
Adding to this:
when I say I’m looking for texts in “metaphysical foundations of logic”, I mean that broadly construed. Could be an emergent information theoretic view on the nature of order in the universe, could be an ancient Hindu text- anything you might recommend. (“Logos”?)
I just saw this somewhere on here earlier and got excited just by the title!
What works like this— i.e., in the “metaphysical foundations of logic”—exist /should I check out if I’m deeply interested in this topic?