Category: Biology of Information
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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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“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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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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World Model – “Free Energy” Selections of Perception & Policy
During their lives humans constantly interact with the physical environment, as well as with themselves and others.World model learning and inference are crucial concepts in brain and cognitive science, as well as in AI and robotics. The outstanding challenges of building a generalpurpose AI needs world modelling and probabilistic inference, needed to realise a brain-like…
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Designing for Human-AI interaction is hard. (So steal like an artist :-)
Following is and interesting article/blog , and just “stolen like an artist” from https://www.simonoregan.com/short-thoughts/the-design-difficulties-of-human-ai-interaction Designing for Human-AI interaction is hard. Here Yang et al. catalog where designers run into problems when applying the traditional 4Ds process to designing AI systems. These difficulties can be broadly attributed to two sources: This uncertainty and complexity combination then…
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VVUQ your model and twin – should we trust ?
The world is moving towards digital twins. I recently came across a insightfull article: A probabilistic graphical model foundation for enabling predictive digital twins at scale, available at Arxiv – & published Nature The digital twin is a set of coupled computational models that evolve over time to persistently represent the structure, behavior, and context…
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Learning: Brain vs xNN
The neural and cognitive architecture for learning from a small sample is a nice article I would like to recommend. It highlights how human learners avoid generalization issues found in machine learning, proposes a general model explaining how the brain may simplify complex problems. Synergy between cognitive functions and reinforcement learning allows simplification.Recurrent loops between…
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Less = More, “Lets Kill”
One of the great readings recently was the article from Adams, G.S., Converse, B.A., Hales, A.H. et al. in Nature: People systematically overlook subtractive changes. The summary video, clearly marks the point: Experiments show that people default to adding as a solution in various situations. It appears to be an uncommon insight. When solving problems, people prefer adding…
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Can we get human nature right?
For years, I have the pleasure to follow the great blog site of Deric Brownd. I would like to share with you this post on the recent perspective on ‘Can we get human nature right?‘. Iris Berent does an interesting Perspective artice in PNAS that considers the strong intuitions that laypeople hold about human nature. People’s attitudes…
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The magic of walking ….
I already suggested once: “Maybe – in this upcoming world of AI – we should not just walk on our own, but also ask our AI system to take a break and reflect on the good nature of its activities.” This suggestion is maybe more challenging for the AI and relevant for humans, according to…
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Skills in Space
Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought is a great book by Barbara Tversky. In this book, she argues that spatial thinking is the foundation of all thought, including abstract thinking. When there are too many thoughts to hold in mind, we put those thoughts into the world in various ways, and the way we put…
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Does the quality of “Smart Information Processing” connect with the Default Mode Network ?
I was triggered by an article in Nature, explaining the atypical connectome hierarchy in ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). ASD is characterized by atypical sensory processing, while and deficits in high-level cognitive and social functions, including impairments in Theory of Mind and predictive abilities. The article points out that ASD might emerge from disturbances in macroscale cortical…
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The Information Lens – helping to correct the failure of the Perceptron
In the rich history of information processing, the idea of the perceptron occurred, based on the founding ideas of the artificial neuron (McCulloch and Pitts, 1943). Including the available knowledge of learning, Frank Rosenblatt constructed the perceptron devices, building the first of artificial learning machines, and as such creating the first neural nets in 1957. As referenced in “Calling Bullshit” (Ch. 8, intro),…
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Biological thinking – BCG
I want to share this BCG article on Biological Thinking, messy management for a complex world. Biological thinking matters for several important reasons: First, in complex adaptive systems, there is no single formula or framework that always works. In fact, the very defiance of formulaic problem solving is what makes CAS management so challenging initially.…
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Friston: The Genius Neuroscientist Who Might Hold the Key to True AI, WIRED says.
Karl Friston’s free energy principle might be the most all-encompassing idea since Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection. But to understand it, you need to peer inside the mind of Friston himself. Wired has a great article on this idea and researcher.Some inspiring exerpts and quotes: He realized that [it] had no larger purpose, at…
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Coarse-graining as a downward causation mechanism
Apparent downward causation does not demand that estimates of aggregate properties be correct or even good predictors of the system’s future state or successful strategies (although that would be useful). Furthermore, components do not need to agree in their estimates of the variables. Apparent downward causation becomes effective downward causation—the strong form—when: As an interaction or environmental…
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When science hits a limit, learn to ask different questions
The fish will be the last to discover water. https://aeon.co/ideas/when-science-hits-a-limit-learn-to-ask-different-questions
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The information theory of individuality
Krakauer, D., Bertschinger, N., Olbrich, E. et al. The information theory of individuality. Theory Biosci. 139, 209–223 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12064-020-00313-7 Despite the near universal assumption of individuality in biology, there is little agreement about what individuals are and few rigorous quantitative methods for their identification. Here, we propose that individuals are aggregates that preserve a measure of temporal integrity, i.e., “propagate”…
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