Category: Biology of Information

• Nested hierarchies in skills – importance of basic education

  In many careers, a person must learn foundational skills before advancing deeper into their profession. Computer programmers need a solid foundation in basic mathematics; nurses must gain clinical experience and specialized training to become nurse practitioners; a negotiator’s ability to persuade depends on solid communication and active-listening skills. A recent paper published in Nature Human Behaviour mapped the dependency…

  walterstiers

  2025-04-15

  #sense-making, Biology of Information, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Practical Wisdom, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, AI, artificial-intelligence, education, skills, technology

• Greatness Cannot Be Planned

  Why does modern life revolve around objectives? From how science is funded, to improving how children are educated — and nearly everything in-between — our society has become obsessed with a seductive illusion: that greatness results from doggedly measuring improvement in the relentless pursuit of an ambitious goal. In Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned—The Myth of…

  walterstiers

  2025-04-02

  #Sensemaking, #Wicked, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Innovation Games, Life Ideas, Practical Wisdom, Science

  #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, consciousness, history, philosophy, Science, spirituality

• Blink and you see it

  “Blink and you see it“ Every few seconds, our visual world disappears behind a thin fold of skin that maintains the tear film on the corneal surface and, for more than a tenth of a second, blocks light from falling onto the retina. “Blink and you miss it” is a common idiom that captures how…

  walterstiers

  2025-04-01

  #Sensemaking, Biology of Information, Neurobiology/psychology, Science

  #DecisionIntelligence, #Neuroscience, #TheInformationLens, brain, health, mental-health

• Perfectionism – anxiety symptoms

  “Personality organization and anxiety symptoms: Investigating the mediation of perfectionism“ Personality functioning has increasing significance in the assessment of mental health and mental disorders. Otto Kernberg’s model of personality organization is an extensively applied, theoretically grounded approach to categorizing the severity of personality impairment based on intrapsychic and interpersonal functioning. This study aimed to investigate…

  walterstiers

  2025-03-28

  Biology of Information, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens, anxiety, health, mental-health, psychology, relationships

• “mundane behaviours resembles a drug”

  The problem extends across the globe. Researchers have studied compulsive shopping in many countries, including the United States, Turkey, Poland, Germany, India, Brazil, South Korea and Pakistan — where almost one-third of university students were classified as compulsive buyers in both physical stores and online.Heping He, a marketing researcher at Shenzhen University in China, is…

  walterstiers

  2025-03-06

  #sense-making, #stakeholder economy, Biology of Information

  #DecisionIntelligence, #EconomicBehavior, #Neuroscience, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, addiction, anxiety, health, mental-health

• ‘We are kin to everything’

  From the Nature Briefing of March 5, 2025 In her hit 2013 book, Braiding Sweetgrass, botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, who is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, made the argument for bringing together knowledge from Western and Indigenous science. In The Serviceberry, she turns her microscope on the damaging disconnects between capitalist economics and the circular economy…

  walterstiers

  2025-03-05

  #stakeholder economy, Biology of Information, Life Ideas

  #DecisionIntelligence, #StakeholderEconomy, #TheInformationLens

• A Drive to Survive

  “A Drive to Survive: The Free Energy Principle and the Meaning of Life“ How the purposive behavior of living systems outstrips the constraints of the free energy principle. Since 2005, Karl Friston’s proposal that the principle of free energy minimization underpins the purposive behavior of living agents has evolved through thousands of publications. This principle’s central…

  walterstiers

  2025-02-22

  #Sensemaking, Active Inference, Biology of Information, Information Technology, Life Ideas

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens

• Humans rationally balance abstract world models

  This work adds to a growing body of research showing that the brain arbitrates between approximate decision strategies. The current study extends these ideas from simple habits into usage of more sophisticated approximate predictive models, and demonstrates that individuals dynamically adapt these in response to the predictability of their environment. How do people model the…

  walterstiers

  2025-02-10

  Biology of Information, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Science

  #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, AI, artificial-intelligence, data-science, machine-learning, technology

• Defining intelligence: Bridging the gap

  “Defining intelligence: Bridging the gap between human and artificial perspectives“ Achieving a widely accepted definition of human intelligence has been challenging, a situation mirrored by the diverse definitions of artificial intelligence in computer science. By critically examining published definitions, highlighting both consistencies and inconsistencies, this paper proposes a refined nomenclature that harmonizes conceptualizations across the two disciplines.…

  walterstiers

  2025-02-09

  AI, Biology of Information, Information Technology, Neurobiology/psychology, Science

  #DecisionIntelligence, #HumanAI, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, agi, AI, artificial-intelligence, machine-learning, technology

• Explanation in Biology

  The most recent publication from the series “Philisophy of Biology” is “Explanation in Biology“, available for free download at the site. The book introduces and elaborates scientific explanations in biology and the life sciences. Explanations are viewed as a “primary” objective of science – theyoffer deep understanding and knowledge of the world, as opposed to…

  walterstiers

  2025-01-22

  #Sensemaking, Biology of Information, Life Ideas, Practical Wisdom, Science

  #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens, biology, food, health, immunology

• ostracism across contexts

  “Psychosocial and behavioural consequences of ostracism across contexts“ Ostracism (being ignored and excluded) thwarts basic psychological needs fundamental for human survival. As a painful experience, ostracism has various mental health, cognitive and behavioural consequences. In this Review, we outline the main psychosocial and behavioural consequences of ostracism and consider how these consequences might be unique…

  walterstiers

  2025-01-07

  #Sensemaking, Biology of Information, Decision Intelligence

  #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens, #Wicked

• The unbearable slowness of being …

  The unbearable slowness of being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s? This article is about the neural conundrum behind the slowness of human behavior. The information throughput of a human being is about 10 bits/s. In comparison, our sensory systems gather data at ∼109 bits/s. The stark contrast between these numbers remains unexplained and touches…

  walterstiers

  2025-01-02

  #sense-making, Biology of Information, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Neurobiology/psychology, Science

  #DecisionIntelligence, #Neuroscience, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, brain, health, mental-health, Science

• Contextualizing predictive minds

  “Contextualizing predictive minds” discusses how the structure of human memory seems to be optimized for efficient prediction, planning, and behavior. We propose that these capacities rely on a tripartite structure of memory that includes concepts, events, and contexts—three layers that constitute the mental world model. We suggest that the mechanism that critically increases adaptivity and…

  walterstiers

  2024-12-17

  #sense-making, Active Inference, AI, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Neurobiology/psychology, Policy, Social-Technical

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, AI, artificial-intelligence, machine-learning, psychology

• Bayesian Models of Cognition 

  “Bayesian Models of Cognition Reverse Engineering the Mind” is a new MIT-press Open Access book available for online reading. The definitive introduction to Bayesian cognitive science, written by pioneers of the field. How does human intelligence work, in engineering terms? How do our minds get so much from so little? Bayesian models of cognition provide…

  walterstiers

  2024-11-19

  #sense-making, Active Inference, AI, Biology of Information, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Neurobiology/psychology, Science

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #HumanAI, #TheInformationLens, AI, artificial-intelligence, data-science, machine-learning, statistics

• Predecisional information search adaptively reduces uncertainty

  “Predecisional information search adaptively reduces three typesof uncertainty“ How do people search for information when they are given the opportunity to freely explore their options? Information search is an integral part of the decision-making process. Every choice we make is based on information that must first be obtained. In many cases, information search is inherently…

  walterstiers

  2024-11-18

  #Sensemaking, Biology of Information, Complexity, Decision Intelligence

  #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens, #Uncertainty

• The Universal Optimism of the Self-Evidencing Mind

  “The Universal Optimism of the Self-Evidencing Mind“:Karl Friston’s free-energy principle casts agents as self-evidencing through active inference. This implies that decision-making, planning and information-seeking are, in a generic sense, ‘wishful’. We take an interdisciplinary perspective on this perplexing aspect of the free-energy principle and unpack the epistemological implications of wishful thinking under the free-energy principle.…

  walterstiers

  2024-11-05

  #sense-making, Active Inference, Biology of Information, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Practical Wisdom

  #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, affirmations, manifestation, mindset, philosophy

• Cognitive Biases in Fact-Checking and Their Countermeasures

  “Cognitive Biases in Fact-Checking and Their Countermeasures: A Review“ Types of user tasks that may involve cognitive biases: Task Description Causal Attribution Tasks involving an assessment of causality. Decision Tasks involving the selection of one over several alternative options. Estimation Tasks where people are asked to assess the value of a quantity. Hypothesis Assessment Tasks…

  walterstiers

  2024-11-05

  #sense-making, #Wicked, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Practical Wisdom, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, #Uncertainty, #Wicked, bias, cognitive-bias, cognitive-biases, decision-making, psychology

• A History of Bodies, Brains, and Minds

  We’re being spoiled by MIT Press Open Access. Not just did we just receive access to the great title “From Sensing to Sentience” , but also “A History of Bodies, Brains, and Minds: The Evolution of Life and Consciousness” became available for download. A panoramic view of the evolution of life on our planet, from…

  walterstiers

  2024-11-04

  #Wicked, Biology of Information, Complexity, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Science, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #TheInformationLens, brain, consciousness, evolution, philosophy, Science

• From Sensing to Sentience: How Feeling Emerges from the Brain

  Open access book, download available @ MIT Press A new theory of Neurobiological Emergentism that explains how sentience emerges from the brain. Sentience is the feeling aspect of consciousness. In From Sensing to Sentience, Todd Feinberg develops a new theory called Neurobiological Emergentism (NBE) that integrates biological, neurobiological, evolutionary, and philosophical perspectives to explain how sentience naturally emerges from the brain. Emergent…

  walterstiers

  2024-11-04

  #Sensemaking, Biology of Information, Complexity, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Science, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #TheInformationLens, AI, artificial-intelligence, consciousness, sentience

• The illusion of information adequacy

  “The illusion of information adequacy““The science behind why people think they’re right when they’re actually wrong“ You don’t know what you don’t know.  –Socrates How individuals navigate perspectives and attitudes that diverge from their own affects an array of interpersonal outcomes from the health of marriages to the unfolding of international conflicts. The finesse with…

  walterstiers

  2024-10-17

  #Sensemaking, Biology of Information, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Policy, Practical Wisdom, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, empathy, mental-health, philosophy, psychology, realism

• Belief-Consistent Information Processing for a Set of Biases

  “Toward Parsimony in Bias Research: A Proposed Common Framework of Belief-Consistent Information Processing for a Set of Biases“ The authors argue that many different biases, such as the bias blind spot, hostile media bias, egocentric/ethnocentric bias, and outcome bias, can be traced back to the combination of a fundamental prior belief and humans’ tendency toward…

  walterstiers

  2024-10-13

  #Sensemaking, Biology of Information, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Practical Wisdom, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, bias, cognitive-bias, cognitive-biases, confirmation-bias, psychology

• Nature heals

  “Nature heals: An informational entropy account of self-organization and change in field psychotherapy“Highlights This paper reviews biophysical models of psychotherapeutic change based on synergetics and the free energy principle. These models suggest that introducing sensory surprise into the patient-therapist system can lead to self-organization and the formation of new attractor states, disrupting entrenched patterns of…

  walterstiers

  2024-10-13

  Active Inference, Biology of Information, Complexity, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, consciousness, mental-health, philosophy, psychology, spirituality

• Affect-centered account of motivated behavior

  “The affective gradient hypothesis: an affect-centered account of motivated behavior“: everyone agrees that feelings and actions are intertwined, but cannot agree how. According to dominant models, actions are directed by estimates of value and these values shape or are shaped by affect. The article proposes instead that affect is the only form of value that…

  walterstiers

  2024-10-13

  #sense-making, Biology of Information, Decision Intelligence, Neurobiology/psychology

  #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, education, health, mental-health, personal-growth, psychology

• Movement Matters

  An Open Access book from MIT press, Movement Matters: How Embodied Cognition Informs Teaching and Learning (available for download). Experts translate the latest findings on embodied cognition from neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science to inform teaching and learning pedagogy. Embodied cognition represents a radical shift in conceptualizing cognitive processes, in which cognition develops through mind-body…

  walterstiers

  2024-09-26

  Biology of Information, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Walking

  #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, cognitive-science, education, fitness, mental-health, psychology