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Active Inference – The book
Available, – Open Access – free to download – great reading … Active Inference: The Free Energy Principle in Mind, Brain, and Behavior By Thomas Parr, Giovanni Pezzulo, Karl J. Friston The first comprehensive treatment of active inference, an integrative perspective on brain, cognition, and behavior used across multiple disciplines. Active inference is a way of understanding…
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Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere: An Experimentally-Grounded Framework for Understanding Diverse Bodies and Minds
This post is a pointer to a great article from Michael Levin, just published in Frontiers in Systems Neurosciences All known cognitive agents are collective intelligences, because we are all made of parts; biological agents in particular are not just structurally modular, but made of parts that are themselves agents in important ways. There is…
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French Horn taught me everything I needed to Know – Arthur Brooks
‘From Strength to Strength:’ Follow this link, fill out the CAPTCHA and … Arthur Brooks discusses his new book. He discusses about a nice set of ideas on building a happy and interesting life. His book, From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life is a practical…
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Machine Learning Article deserves to have the best ‘Plain Language Summary’
I share the opinion that “all plain language summaries should aspire to the glorious heights of this piece of literary art.”I also like the conclusion presented 🙂
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Why Can the Brain (And Not a Computer) Make Sense of the Liar Paradox?
Ordinary computing machines prohibit self-reference because it leads to logical inconsistencies and undecidability. In contrast, the human mind can understand self-referential statements without necessitating physically impossible brain states. Why can the brain make sense of self-reference? This paper addresses this question by defining the Strange Loop Model, which features causal feedback between two brain modules,…
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Characteristics, potentials, and challenges of transdisciplinary research
Resolving the grand challenges and wicked problems of the Anthropocene will require skillfully combining a broad range of knowledge and understandings—both scientific and non-scientific—of Earth systems and human societies. One approach to this is transdisciplinary research, which has gained considerable interest over the last few decades, resulting in an extensive body of literature about transdisciplinarity.…
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‘It from bit’
‘It from bit’ symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom—at a very deep bottom, in most instances—an immaterial source and explanation; that what we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical…
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Complex Data and Models lead to Ascendency Analysis
When making decisions, data might not be overlooked, nor the methodology to collect and interprete them. Especially in complex matteras as sustainability and circular economy, data, the collection and interpretation is key in helping our understanding and guiding our decisions. The EU JRC just published a great overview report on “Domestic Footprint of the EU…
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“Nocebo” calls for vaccination side effects.
Most of the side effects that people experience after a COVID-19 vaccination can be blamed on the ‘nocebo’ effect. The nocebo effect is like the evil twin of the placebo effect — for example, it heightens pain if a person anticipates that something will hurt. Researchers reviewed 12 randomized clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines and…
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DLT decisions, 5 lessons from Walmart
I could not resist to summarize the HBR Article on “How Walmart Canada Uses Blockchain to Solve Supply-Chain Challenges”Walmart Canada applied blockchain to solve a common logistics nightmare: payment disputes with its 70 third-party freight carriers. To solve the problem it built a blockchain network. The system has not only virtually eliminated the payments problem;…
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“active learning conditions” stimulate common processes that become part of the representations
There is an emerging consensus on the virtues of active learning methods for improving student performance. Such learning methods can be any instruction or technique that requires students to actively engage in the learning process, as compared to more traditional, passive ways of learning.One form of active learning is retrieval practice (RP), where the activity…
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9 out of 10 fail, but ACM and AIT might help… recalibrating/updating stress responsivity patterns
Future-Proofing Startups: Stress Management Principles Based on Adaptive Calibration Model and Active Inference Theory Adaptive Calibration Model (ACM) and Active Inference Theory (AIT) are related to future-proofing startups. – ACM encompasses the allocation of energy by the stress response system to alternative options for action, depending upon individuals’ life histories and changing external contexts. –…
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Break the wall of disciplines: Internal and external transformation for sustainability and climate
The growing need to respond the quest for sustainability, raises the importance of good decision making. A great article just published, relates good sustainable decisioning to internal and external transformations needed. The authors propose an integrated model of change as an agenda and roadmap for future research, policy and practice. Some intersting text snippets: From…
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What Does It Mean for AI to Understand?
Melanie Mitchell has a great article, she just announced at Complexity Digest: Language models can generate uncannily humanlike prose (and poetry!) and seemingly perform sophisticated linguistic reasoning. How can we test if these machines actually understand what they’re doing? Read the full article at: www.quantamagazine.orghttps://www.quantamagazine.org/what-does-it-mean-for-ai-to-understand-20211216/# Understanding language requires understanding the world, and a machine exposed only…
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Refocus your “Information Lens” everytime again…
A great comment appeared today on the site of Nature:Decision makers need constantly updated evidence synthesis “Science does not stand still; neither should its synthesis and translation into action.” Startin with a focus on COVID-19, it clearly states the wider importance: Evidence synthesis .. helps to tackle questions in education, economics, environment, criminal justice, global…
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Binary “Space-Time decisions” accumulate
There was this great article in PNAS, recently: The geometry of decision-making in individuals and collectives. Luis M. Rocha posted a perfect summary on twitter: In biology, complex dynamics so often lead to binary (thresholded/critical) decision: “we predict that the brain repeatedly breaks multichoice decisions into a series of binary decisions in space–time”.
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“it’s a walk in the park”
“It’s not rocket science” and “It’s not brain surgery” The phrases “It’s not rocket science” and “It’s not brain surgery” are commonly and interchangeably used for tasks or concepts that are easy Using such phrases suggests that both specialties are put on a pedestal of being difficult or requiring exceptional cognitive abilities Whether they are…
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