11 February 2022h15-17 Greenwhich Mean Time / 16-18 CET(check your local time here) Abstract. Multi-layer artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been used to model many different neural and cognitive processes ranging from vision to memory to motor control. The recent…
One reason provided for the U-turn on COVID vaccines is the fear of critical staff shortages. But that would not necessarily apply if staffing problems in the NHS are addressed. In the US, large hospitals that have mandated flu vaccination…
Lessing’s prickliness could also make him immune to the delusions about German cultural superiority expounded by other thinkers of his age, however. Two threads run through Lessing’s diverse reflections: a deep philosophical pessimism inherited from his idol Arthur Schopenhauer, and…
Levels (including Mechanisms) Wayne Wu Diego Marconi Fabrizio Calzavarini, University of Bergamo and LLC, University of Turin Mazviita Chirimuuta Rationality October 21-22 and 28-29, 2022 Marco Viola, University of Turin Submission deadline: Jun 30, 2022 Cognitive Ontology Frédérique de Vignemont…
(I am grateful to Ben Bramble, Brian Earp, and John Skorupski for advice and discussion.) Is there any reason we might hesitate to accept that benevolence can be impersonal, and that one can act wrongly without wronging anyone in particular?…
Given how far the discipline has come, you might think that the need to integrate psychology and neuroscience into cognitive neuroscience would hardly be controversial anymore. Nevertheless, skeptics raised to think that psychology is autonomous still “do not expect cognitive…
The first key is to follow what Judea Pearl sometimes calls the “causal revolution” that has changed the way many sciences work. There was a time when statisticians eschewed causal claims in favor of correlations. In recent decades, however, Pearl…
As is often the case, we should strive for a reasonable middle ground. Do your research, use your own judgment, and make it a point to cite at least some people who did valuable work even though they are not…
While this exchange was designed to trigger some inner-high five with the audience, I found MJ’s shift from quasi-stoic hopelessness to giddy hopefulness disappointing – here’s yet another story about how we need hope to defeat the baddies/The Empire/Sauron/Thanos/the aliens/the…
A good book review should tell the reader how the book fits in the intellectual landscape in a way that the reader cannot easily find out on their own. Explain what problem is being solved, how previous authors have attempted…
Of course I could have avoided encountering these tweets. I clicked on the hashtag myself. But Twitter’s open structure means that a less dramatic version of this sort of thing happens frequently. I may accumulate defeaters for my beliefs just…
Rather than impose a vaccine mandate, the most important protective measure that can be put in place in hospitals is the continued testing of staff and vigilance around the use of handwashing and appropriate PPE. This article is republished from…
Nick Zangwill’s argument hinges on the anticipated pleasure of hypothetical animals – future animals – that will someday exist because of animal breeding for meat production. The idea is that ‘having a life’ is better than ‘not having a life’,…
Chivers analyses the fallout in terms of a distinction between ‘high decouplers’ and ‘low decouplers’, a distinction described by the blogger John Nerst, here and also here. Chivers (and Nerst) describe decoupling as a ‘magic ritual’ that a speaker can…
