Author: walterstiers
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Nexus – or ???
A nexus is a connection, link, or central point where multiple parts, ideas, or things come together. Following fragment by Connor Leahy from The Nexus Instituut entitled “Dropping birth rates and technology” might be inspiring about our future.
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Embracing wicked problems thinking
“Embracing wicked problems thinking will advance conservation science and practice” Highlights Provides a definition for understanding wicked problems in conservation science Demonstrate how wicked problems thinking can inform research through case studies Provide a framework with recommendations to support conservation scientists Wicked problems thinking has been used to describe problems related to food security and…
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Can artificial systems become conscious?
“Can artificial systems become conscious?—Recursive embodied closure as an integrative framework” Recent advances in artificial intelligence, connectomics, and computational neuroscience increasingly raise the question of whether artificial systems—or even pure computer simulations—could become conscious. Contemporary theories emphasize embodiment, predictive processing, homeostatic regulation, and continuous interaction between cognition, body, and environment rather than isolated computation. We…
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Data by Design
“Data by Design Visualization and Power from Abolition to the Dawn of Data Science” – Available Open Access How the history of data visualization holds the key to designing a more just future. From maps of colonial empires to charts of national trade, data visualization has long been used to consolidate knowledge and power. But…
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Beyond attention
“Beyond attention: performance pressure shifts information-processing complexity” Why does performance pressure sometimes cause choking but sometimes elicit exceptional performance? We propose that pressure shifts the complexity of information-processing rules that guide action. Performance improves when shifts move processing toward task-matched complexity and deteriorates when they promote maladaptive simplification, overcomplexification, or the use of rules that…
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Beyond representations
“Beyond representations: from active inference to active interference” Active inference describes the system–environment boundary through statistical constructs such as the Markov blanket, a substrate-independent formalism that specifies a boundary’s functional role without committing to the physical structure realizing it. We ask what structure can perform that role, and propose Active Interference as a complementary, biophysically…
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Beyond accuracy
“Beyond accuracy: interoceptive self-appraisal and the meaning of bodily signals” Highlights Large-scale psychophysical studies find interoceptive accuracy largely unrelated to affective and mental health. Interoceptive ability dissociates across cardiac, gastric, and respiratory channels, undercutting single-signal measures. Bodily signals become most informative during arousal and physiological challenge, not in the resting states where they are typically…
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Prediction during language comprehension
“Prediction during language comprehension: what is next?” Highlights: During language processing, comprehenders predict upcoming linguistic input. These predictions draw on many sources of information including the preceding sentence context. We review a substantial body of evidence which has explored the information used and generated in the computation of prediction, as well as the constraints. Further…
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De auto, de geit en de wiskunde
driedeuren.nl www.nieuwezijds.nl/boek/de-auto-de-geit-en-de-wiskunde Het is een klassiek wiskunderaadsel: het driedeurenprobleem. Je mag in een spelshow kiezen tussen drie deuren. Achter één deur staat een auto die je graag wil winnen, achter de andere twee een geit. Zodra je een deur kiest, maakt de presentator een van de twee andere open: daar staat een geit. En dan…
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neuroevolutionbook.com
https://neuroevolutionbook.com Neuroevolution: Harnessing Creativity in AI Agent Design An MIT Press Book by Sebastian Risi, Yujin Tang, David Ha, and Risto Miikkulainen, Foreword by Melanie Mitchell The online version of the book is now freely available in an open-access HTML format. The print edition will be released in October 2026. Neuroevolution is a population-based search…
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a psychology of real-life decision-making
“Toward a psychology of real-life decision-making” Novel developments in biologging technology allow for precise measurement of individual-level behavior across time and space. Additionally, novel technologies allow researchers to quantify in detail the environments in which people are embedded when making decisions. Such devices, however, are only useful to cognitive scientists when integrated with formal theoretical…
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Cognitive maps – a medium for thought
“Cognitive maps as a medium for thought“ Cognitive maps and propositional representations (the ‘language of thought’) are different from each other but share some key characteristics, such as compositionality. To be useful for thinking, cognitive maps must interface with language of thought-like representations. This may involve the same operations that are used to convert cognitive…
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INTEROCEPTIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
“Life-inspired interoceptive artificial intelligence for autonomous and adaptive agents” and free to read Despite remarkable advances in artificial intelligence (AI), building agents that can autonomously pursue goals while adapting to continuously changing environments remains a fundamental challenge. Living organisms naturally exhibit such adaptive autonomy, offering a compelling source of inspiration for how artificial systems might…
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From Denial to Acceptance
“From Denial to Acceptance—Leveraging the Five Stages of Grief to Unlock Climate Action” Climate change is not only a technical and environmental challenge but also an emotional and psychological one that affects public engagement, policy acceptance, and long-term sustainability. This study presents a conceptual framework based on the Kübler-Ross model from psychotherapy to explore emotional…
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Structure Inference Improves From Childhood to Adulthood
“Structure Inference in Complex Environments Improves From Childhood to Adulthood” also available on website of Aaron M. Bornstein. Early in development, children can infer latent structure in the world from sparse and ambiguous evidence. Through a process known as structure learning, they extract statistical regularities, construct causal models from those regularities, and use those models…
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Four faces of information in natural systems
Ever wonder what “information” really means? Here‘s a new paper, that lays out the multiple ways the term is used in natural science. Instead of arguing for a single valid interpretation, the paper proposes a pluralistic view where rigorous alternatives coexist — each with affordances and limits. The idea of ‘information’ has been instrumental to…
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On Minds
“On Minds: Reflections of a Cognitive Architect”MIT Press OA Toward a deeper understanding of minds, whether natural or artificial, and of how they are studied and built across AI, AGI, and cognitive science. Minds are functional entities that enable intelligent behavior. In On Minds, Paul Rosenbloom offers reflections and perspectives on the study of minds arising from…
