Luiz Pessoa

3K Followers
622 Following
585 Posts

Neuroscientist interested in the cognitive-emotional brain.
Author of The Entangled Brain, MIT Press, Nov, 2022.
Neuroscience & Philosophy Salon.
University of Maryland, College Park, USA

#neuroscience

My book, The Entangled Brain, is aimed at a general audience interested in science, and discusses how we can think of the brain in terms of distributed processing that strongly blurs the boundaries between traditional domains, such as perception, cognition, action, emotion, and motivation.

Lab's websiteLab's website: https://lce.umd.edu/
Neuroscience & Philosophy Salonhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-_KM7ymeSn6P_hHQLhjrnw
The Entangled Brainhttps://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262544603/the-entangled-brain/
@NicoleCRust
We need more of it!!

Brainstorming corrections for scientific myopia

Iโ€™m convinced that weโ€™ve inadvertently created a scientific culture that disproportionately dissuades high-level, big-picture thinking. How do we rectify that?

A few venues I know. Please add to this list!

We write at a high-level. Venues: perspective pieces of journals, thetransmitter.org, aeon.org, etc

We hold workshops to discuss things, at a high-level. Venues like https://www.tfi.ucsb.edu/ & https://esforum.de/ have interesting models.

We devote some time to this at conferences (Iโ€™ll be trying that here: https://2024.ccneuro.org/; letโ€™s see how it goes). Know any other examples?

We write, read and discuss books.

I understand astrophysics does something organized (given shared resources): everyone is polled; plans are discussed; reports are written.

The Foundations Institute | UC Santa Barbara | The Foundations Institute | UC Santa Barbara

Advancing scientific progress by reassessing foundational ideas.

@NicoleCRust @DrYohanJohn @awaisaftab @eikofried
I completely agree Nicole. But we need thoughtfulness overall right? I mean, also in not defaulting to the lower/lowest levels?

How seriously should we take "levels" of reality? I mean the parcellation of the universe into, say, the particle level, the chemical level, the cellular level, the organism, individual level, the social/ecological level etc?

Do levels interpenetrate?

Are these metaphysical matters or just pragmatic ones?

Stimulated by the great session on mental disorders just completed, hosted by @PessoaBrain , featuring Anneli Jefferson, @awaisaftab , @NicoleCRust , Alexey Tolchinky & @eikofried

@DrYohanJohn @awaisaftab @NicoleCRust @eikofried
I think we seriously need to advance our understanding of how levels penetrate. Otherwise we'll be always stuck at one given level.

Here's one way that I think of it: in terms of constraints.

How does the level of biology affect the level of chemistry (very loosely speaking)? By constraining/guiding/canalizing what chemistry can do.

In any case we have to start developing multi-level accounts. Somehow! ๐Ÿ˜ฌ

TODAY: ๐—”๐—ฟ๐—ฒ ๐—ฝ๐˜€๐˜†๐—ฐ๐—ต๐—ถ๐—ฎ๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ถ๐—ฐ ๐—ฑ๐—ถ๐˜€๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐˜€ ๐—ฏ๐—ฟ๐—ฎ๐—ถ๐—ป ๐—ฑ๐—ถ๐˜€๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐˜€?

Check time difference given US spring time already.
Today: 12pm US, eastern time

Neuroscience & Philosophy Salon with Anneli Jefferson and @awaisaftab

with commentaries by @eikofried @NicoleCRust and Alexey Tolchisnky

Register:
umd.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

@NicoleCRust
Really good right?

Really enjoying this History & Philosophy of science podcast - many episodes are well done. I recommend the episode w/ Hasok Chang and Epistemic Iteration

https://thehpspodcast.buzzsprout.com/2180146/14139962

S2 Ep 11 - Hasok Chang on Epistemic Iteration - The HPS Podcast - Conversations from History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science

"We get this instinct that true science must start from a firm foundation. Time and again, that's what I see NOT happening in the practice of science. We start from where we stand. The foundation is never indubitable, the foundation is provisional...

Buzzsprout

Another great @PessoaBrain salon: ๐—”๐—ฟ๐—ฒ ๐—ฝ๐˜€๐˜†๐—ฐ๐—ต๐—ถ๐—ฎ๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ถ๐—ฐ ๐—ฑ๐—ถ๐˜€๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐˜€ ๐—ฏ๐—ฟ๐—ฎ๐—ถ๐—ป ๐—ฑ๐—ถ๐˜€๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐˜€?

Neuroscience & Philosophy Salon discussion with Anneli Jefferson & @awaisaftab, plus @eikofried, Alexey Tolchinsky & yours truly ๐Ÿ˜Šโ€‹ chiming in.

Mar 21, 12pm US-east

Register here:
https://umd.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0vc-6hpjwoHt3QkJSC7gmndwYYUiaf5S2F#/registration

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Neuroscience & Philosophy Salon. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Neuroscience & Philosophy Salon. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.

Zoom
Side story: When I did my PhD a zillion years ago (in computational neuroscience) there was this young professor, Evan Thompson, who let me audit his philosophy class. He was even open to writing a conceptual paper together about the other blind spot (the one in the retina)! What a privilege to learn from him!