@metzinger.bsky.social in Being No One (52) makes Anil's point when he says we're "dreaming vigorously at the world": that waking experience, like a dream, is entirely brain-based phenomenal content but (unlike a dream) is constrained by sensory input, thus tracks the world, thus not hallucinatory.

And perception is not a controlled hallucination, either -- it's augmented reality! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Important news for our Italian colleagues: #PhiMiSci has been recognized as a Class A journal by the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes (ANVUR) in area 11/C2. We hope this will make #PhiMiSci an even more attractive venue for your work!

A lot of what Michael Pollan says echoes an earlier (more philosophical) book by Thomas Metzinger. A "consciousness culture" is one of greater awareness and deliberate attention, encompassing both the personal and transpersonal domains of life (I've not yet read Pollan's book).

Who should object if the US wants to overthrow a fanatically religious system?

what a crazy night for sam altman to be like "yeah we got that dept of war deal, and there's no moral concerns here"

Durchmarsch der fossilen Lobby beim „#Heizungsgesetz“: Die Bundesregierung dreht jegliche Ambitionen in Richtung zukunftsfähiges Heizen zurück. Davon profitieren allein diejenigen, die weiter mit Gas und Öl Geschäfte machen wollen. 👇 1/10

This is absolutely crazy. theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-...

I feel flattered: Michael liked the Chapter One heading of "The Ego Tunnel" quite a lot.

These people are not our friends. They are far right extremists and actively delusional climate change deniers who want to destroy the European Union by promoting the *very same parties that Wladimir Putin is promoting*. Diplomacy doesn’t work when the other side has the goal to destroy you.

I am very proud of the special issue on „Structuralism in the Science of Consciousness“ that @andrewyuanlee.bsky.social and I edited for @phimisci.bsky.social. The topic has been stewing in the consciousness community for years, but this SI is the first to bring together different perspectives.

What is the brain for? Active inference is widely discussed as a unifying framework for understanding brain function, yet its empirical status remains debated. Our review identifies core predictions across the action-perception cycle and evaluates their empirical support: osf.io/preprints/ps...

In the domain of decision making, active inference evaluates actions by how much they reduce expected future prediction error, integrating pragmatic and epistemic value. It predicts information seeking when utilities are equal and that random exploration scales with policy precision.

"The Self-Evidencing Agent" - my new book - is out now with @mitpress.bsky.social Can be purchased, or just download the whole thing for free, via the 'Open Access' option. I'm grateful to @anilseth.bsky.social and Karl Friston for the generous endorsements. mitpress.mit.edu/978026255389...

Yay, finally!

Uh oh .... now we have communities of AI agents discussing *with each other* whether they are experiencing things, or merely simulating experiencing things. Humans can only observe, not interact www.moltbook.com/post/6fe6491...

This idea was first empirically validated in Suzuki (@ksks.bsky.social) et al. (2017) with the Hallucination Machine: panoramic DeepDream videos presented in VR reliably induced altered states with similarities to psilocybin experiences. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Der Wahnsinn ist noch sehr viel größer: Die Tanklager und Pipelines liefern Kerosin für Militärflugplätze in Deutschland. Warren / die USA haben damit Zugang zu deutscher militärischer Infrastruktur ... Und das BMWi genehmigt sowas ... www.tagesspiegel.de/wirtschaft/p...

Erklärt mir bitte noch einmal, warum X in der EU noch immer nicht verboten ist. Und warum viele PolitikerInnen dort noch immer aktiv sind. Ich habe da Verständnisprobleme.

Wanna know how to infer the presence or absence of consciousness in artificial systems? Check out my new preprint: philarchive.org/rec/WIEITP #PhilMind #PhilConsc #Consciousness

AI Will Change Us open.substack.com/pub/daveshap...

Was genau ist jetzt der europäische Plan für Grönland?

Last night I dreamt I gave a very detailed and precise lecture about lucid dreaming. The dream was not lucid.

this guy represents all of humanity right now

Alexander Pope decried the cruelty of cooking lobsters alive in 1713. 313 years later the practice will finally be banned. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

14 two-year postdocs for academics of any nationality who cannot continue their research due to US politics. Do share if you know of such.

Jetzt schwarz auf weiß: Das Wirtschaftsministerium von Katherina Reiche bestellt einen Expertenbericht (schon mit nahegelegtem Spin), bekommt ihn - und schreibt ihn dann vor Veröffentlichung so um, dass das darin steht, was Reiche will. "mehr EE nötig"(l.) - gestrichen.

Und hier sind vier Seiten aus „Männer, die die Welt verbrennen“. Ich sage seit Jahren: Der Kampf um die Zukunft Deutschlands wird im Inneren der Union entschieden. Wenn sich die pro-MAGA Fossilfreunde in der Partei durchsetzen, können wir alle einpacken. Dann hat Putin gewonnen.

Ich habe gerade nachgesehen: über die entstehende „rechte Internationale“, die sich jetzt auch in der offiziellen Sicherheitsstrategie des Trump-Regimes wiederfindet, habe ich zum ersten mal 2016 geschrieben.

A new book by @metzinger.bsky.social lays out an epistemically responsible and spiritually deep response to the looming climate crisis, one that pulls no punches in its critique of religion and capitalism. It's the unflinching, honest appraisal we need right now. www.amazon.com/-/de/dp/B0FZ...

Hey all, Thomas Metzinger has a new book out, have a look: www.amazon.com/-/de/dp/B0FZ... @metzinger.bsky.social

Frei verfügbar: Brailovskaia, J., Buchmann, J., Hertwig, R., Metzinger, T., Montag, C., et a. (2025): Soziale Medien und die psychische Gesundheit von Kindern und Jugendlichen. Diskussion Nr. 40, Halle (Saale): Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften Leopoldina. thomasmetzinger.com/wp-content/u...

With J. Brailovskaia, J. Buchmann, R. Hertwig, C. Montag, A.-R. Sadeghi, S. Schneider, I. Spiecker gen. Döhmann, I. & A. Waldherr. Social Media and the Mental Health of Children and Adolescents. Discussion No 40, Halle (Saale): German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. doi.org/10.26164/leo....

What if there were a drug that allowed us to study consciousness in its most basic form? Christopher Timmermann describes the potential of 5-MeO-DMT, a psychedelic that strips away everything but awareness. Read the full article here: bigthink.com/neuropsych/5...

Towards a computational phenomenology of meditative deconstruction: modelling ‘letting go’ and the deconstruction of experience with active inference osf.io/preprints/ps...