Author: walterstiers
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Brabant eindelijk belicht
VRT-journalist Luc Pauwels brengt een naar eigen zeggen ‘schandelijk onderbelicht stuk’ van de Vlaamse geschiedschrijving opnieuw tot leven. Pauwels beschrijft hoe één illustere Brabantse dynastie uit de brokstukken van het uiteengevallen Karolingische rijk een middeleeuws staatje smeedt dat ruim de helft van het huidige Vlaanderen en het zuiden van Nederland beslaat: het aloude hertogdom Brabant.…
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Embodied Intelligence
“Embodied Intelligence, Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Natural, Artificial, and Hybrid Systems” An exploration of embodied intelligence that moves beyond the traditional focus on brains and code to the role of embodiment across various disciplines. Nihil est in intellectu quod non sit prius in sensu. —Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate,There is nothing in the understanding that is…
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What Lives?
“What Lives? A Meta-Analysis of Diverse Opinions on the Definition ofLife” The question of “what is life?” has challenged scientists and philosophers for centuries, producing an array of definitions that reflect both the mystery of its emergence and the diversity of disciplinary perspectives brought to bear on the question.Despite significant progress in our understanding of…
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Conducting – all about the people.
A conducting masterclass is all about the music, right? Well… it’s actually about the people.I did already write about this a few years ago… 2026 The Ammodo Masterclass was delivered by Iván Fischer.A few highlight interactions between Iván Fischer and four talented young conductors is available in the video below: This quote on the image…
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The Beautiful Engineering of Us
“The Beautiful Engineering of Us: From Neurons to Collective Minds” SFI External Professor Thalia Wheatley’s community lecture, held on June 23 2026 at the Lensic Performing Arts Center. In this talk, Wheatley explored intelligence not simply as a property of individual brains, but as a collective process of our intensely social species, whose minds are…
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To explore or exploit: Individual differences in preschool decision making
“To explore or exploit: Individual differences in preschool decision making” esearch suggests a pattern of moderate early exploration (shifting from deck to deck) followed by exploitation (consistent choice from advantageous decks) characterizes good decision makers. The main goal of the current study was to use a person centered (latent profile analysis) to explore individual differences…
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Reframing neuroergonomics
“Reframing neuroergonomics in an evolutionary and active inference context” Everyday situations, such as feeling nauseous in virtual-reality environments or getting dizzy when reading as a car passenger, reveal how easily our senses can become confused when modern technology disrupts the innate relationship between the physical environment and human sensory systems. Such disruptions expose the vulnerability…
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Empire of Normality
“Empire of Normality Neurodiversity and Capitalism” by Robert Chapman (Following is an extract from Purkis, J. (2024, augustus 1). Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism by Robert Chapman. The Sociological Review Magazine.) Chapman has penned an important contribution to understanding the genealogy of the ideas that sustain these western capitalist constructs of who is mentally worthy to participate in…
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Cooperation versus social welfare
“Cooperation versus social welfare” Understanding and promoting cooperative behaviour among self-interested individuals is a critical concern in physical, biological, and social sciences. Numerous foundational mechanisms for the evolution of cooperation have been identified, and these mechanisms have served as the basis for developing tools and interventions designed to sustain and enhance cooperative behaviour. However, since…
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Why Our Economic Intuitions Are Often Wrong
“Why Our Economic Intuitions Are Often Wrong”: Such tendencies stem from our evolutionary psychology. Adam Omary / April 21, 2026 Perhaps the most parsimonious theory explaining why people often behave in economically harmful ways is the evolutionary cognitive model of folk-economic beliefs, proposed by anthropologist Pascal Boyer and political scientist Michael Bang Petersen. Folk-economic beliefs are those convictions…
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Algorithmic Idealism?
“Algorithmic Idealism: What Should You Believe to Experience Next?” I argue for an approach to the Foundations of Physics that puts the question in the title center stage, rather than asking “what is the case in the world?”. This approach, algorithmic idealism, attempts to give a mathematically rigorous in-principle-answer to this question both in the usual…
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Modularisation & ITarchitecture complexity
“Modularisation and the management of IT architecture complexity” Managing IT architecture complexity is crucial for organisations striving for efficiency, flexibility, and agility. This paper examines modularisation as a strategy to address IT architecture complexity through a case study at a European bank. We explore three key design choices in modularisation: level of granularity, standardisation of…
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Neurocognitive Dynamics: Nonergodicity and Simpson’s paradox
“Nonergodicity and Simpson’s paradox in neurocognitive dynamics of cognitive control” Nonergodicity and Simpson’s paradox present significant, yet underappreciated challenges in cognitive neuroscience. Leveraging brain imaging and behavioral data from over 4000 individuals and a Bayesian computational model of cognitive dynamics, we investigated brain-behavior relationships underlying cognitive control at both between-subjects and within-subjects levels. Strikingly, brain-behavior…
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Origins and Evolution of Imagination
“Origins and Evolution of Imagination, From Australopithecus to Modern-Day Deep Learning” Where does imagination come from? How did it originate, and which organisms are capable of imagination? What deeper connections does imagination share with consciousness, survival, and the very essence of life? Across both scientific literature and public discourse, imagination is invoked to describe a…
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Attention unleashed
“Attention unleashed: Creative therapy for thoughtful transformation“ Various factors—motivation, interest, fatigue, and external stimuli—influence creative mental processes and attention control (AC). Creative thinking (CT) relies on AC and involves coordinated neural networks and pathways. The cognitive function of AC requires the capacity to direct attention toward distinct features of the environment or internal thoughts. Such…
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A Day in the Life …
A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificatorClear message (with some humor) from the Norwegian Consumer Council…Helping to define the “enshittification” The “real” discussion and content is available on this website Enjoy the message.
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Why AI Agents ….
“Why AI Agents are either the best or worst thing we’ve ever built” Hannah Fry: I built an AI agent. She opened a shop selling novelty mugs, emailed a journalist without being asked, and then leaked our passwords to a total stranger. AI agents don’t just answer questions – they act. They can browse the…
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Mathematical and Musical Abilities
“Are Mathematical and Musical Abilities Related Beyond Intelligence?” Numerous studies have aimed to improve mathematical achievement via musical interventions because it is argued that music and mathematics draw on related representations and similar skills. However, findings on their effectiveness are inconclusive. This might be because studies neglect to investigate the cognitive mechanisms that might link…
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The body does not keep the score
“The body does not keep the score: trauma, predictive coding, and the restoration of metastability” For nearly a decade, the idea that “the body keeps the score” has shaped public and clinical understanding of trauma. It is an enticing metaphor—implying that experience is literally inscribed in flesh, that the body bears the scars of what…
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Top-down attention shifts event boundaries
“Top-down attention shifts behavioral and neural event boundaries in narratives with overlapping event scripts” • Default mode regions represent schematic event scripts during narrative perception • Attending to an event script impacts behavioral event segmentation and memory • Neural dynamics in the mPFC reflect the event structure of an attended script Understanding and remembering the…
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