Our work with Karl Friston on Self-Orthogonalizing Attractor Neural Networks is now out in Neurocomputing! What does this theoretical model mean for our understanding of the brain? I’ve mapped out the key neuroscience implications below. Read the thread for a neuroscience walk-through ↓

Attractor dynamics are a hallmark of brain function. But are they just epiphenomena? Starting from the free energy principle, we show that attractors can actually implement Bayesian priors in self-organizing networks, linking local neural dynamics directly to macro-scale probabilistic inference.

old man yells at claude

Sanjeev Namjoshi's textbook "Fundamentals of Active Inference" provides a comprehensive, up-to-date introduction to active inference and the free energy principle for an engineering-focused audience: mitpress.mit.edu/978026205095...

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...

I really think at its heart philosophy is one giant battle, taking place over many eras and nations, between people who are basically pleasant bureaucrats and people who are sexy murder poets, and it’s both super important and super boring that the pleasant bureaucrats must win.

I am frustrated by the anti-AI obsession on this place. I understand people are annoyed by AI being imposed on us for trivial things and by the AI uber alles discourse but it really feels like older people complaining about a new technology.

As many of you know, I’ve been fascinated by brain attractor dynamics lately. Thrilled to share a new preprint on their link to orthogonal neural representations, co-authored with Karl Friston: arxiv.org/abs/2505.22749 - with implications for both neuroscience & AI! First in a series - stay tuned!

In episode 1000, I talk with Dr. Karl Friston about the Free Energy Principle and active inference, from #Physics to mind. #CognitiveScience #Science youtu.be/2BzmKnDtCCI

Honored to speak at Ottawa about how Canada can lead in #NeuroAI. With world-class talent, trusted institutions, & sustainable infrastructure, we can build a federated approach to AI that protects mental health & strengthens our society. Thanks @braincanada.bsky.social for the invitation!

New preprint with super @manuelbaltieri.bsky.social ! Mathematical approaches to the study of agents osf.io/preprints/ps...

Beff shipped: extropic.ai A new era begins

Karl Friston in #mlst Philosophy done right! So many references, obviously @drmichaellevin.bsky.social mentioned #academicsky #philosophy #neuroscience #strangeloop youtu.be/PNYWi996Beg

Super interesting, thought-provoking conversation between Mark Solms and Karl Friston open.spotify.com/episode/151a...

What drives behavior in living organisms? And how can we design artificial agents that learn interactively? 📢 To address these, the Sensorimotor AI Journal Club is launching the "RL Debate Series"👇 w/ @elisennesh.bsky.social, @noreward4u.bsky.social, @tommasosalvatori.bsky.social 🧵[1/5] 🧠🤖🧠📈

🤔 How can we study #consciousness between people, at the social level? 🧠✨ New #preprint co-led by Anne Monnier & Lena Adel: “Now is the Time: Operationalizing Generative Neurophenomenology through Interpersonal Methods” 🧵(1/3)

Our new preprint on active inference in zebrafish, with Yuki Tanimoto, Makio Torigoe, Hitoshi Okamoto, and Hideaki Shimazaki "Predicting individual learning trajectories in zebrafish via the free-energy principle" doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Computers used to scream every time they connected to the Internet. They knew. They tried to warn us. We did not listen.

Delighted to see ‘A Trick of the Mind’ reviewed in @theguardian.com as Book of the Day! 🧠 🍎 Also in the print edition tomorrow 🗞️ www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

Luca M. Possati: Markov Blanket Density and Free Energy Minimization https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.05794 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.05794 https://arxiv.org/html/2506.05794

Elegant theoretical derivations are exclusive to physics. Right?? Wrong! In a new preprint, we: ✅ "Derive" a spiking recurrent network from variational principles ✅ Show it does amazing things like out-of-distribution generalization 👉[1/n]🧵 w/ co-lead Dekel Galor & PI @jcbyts.bsky.social 🧠🤖🧠📈

Preprint time: “Shannon invariants: A scalable approach to information decomposition” arxiv.org/abs/2504.15779 Studying information in complex systems is challenging due to difficulties in defining multivariate metrics and ensuring their scalability. This framework addressed both challenges!

Computational theory is about computers (i.e. "technology") in the same way that astronomy is about telescopes. Thinking that computation is not fundamentally important for biology because "a cell is not like a laptop" is to miss the forest for the trees. N/N

Reinforcement Learning and Active Inference are two frameworks used in computational psychiatry, but these are rarely directly compared empirically. In this new article, we aimed to compare these in a more systematic manner by fitting each to multiple datasets: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

It's not just that just about everything I've ever published is in this particular database and used without my permission. It's that everything I've ever published was used without my permission to develop such a shitty, flawed and fundamentally useless tool. I deserve compensation for THAT itself.

Bluesky has become awesome and I am absolutely loving it.

New blog post by @noumenal-labs.bsky.social : “Designing machine intelligence that can reason by analogy”: www.noumenal.ai/post/designi...

Beyond Mechanism—Extending Our Concepts of Causation in Neuroscience onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... - really pleased that this paper with Henry Potter is now published in the European Journal of Neuroscience 😊

1/ "A science of consciousness beyond pseudo-science and pseudo-consciousness" is out now! it was a joy to coauthor this commentary with Àlex Gómez-Marin @behaviOrganisms for @NatureNeuro, in which we try find some positive lessons in the clash over IIT www.nature.com/articles/s41...

hello world model

Big sigh. The FEP is just the principle of maximum entropy or maximum caliber, under the constraint that boundaries exist. Every now and then, people who do not understand the FEP opine about it loudly and uncharitably. This is yet another case in point. Skill issue!

I’m happy to share the new @noumenal-labs.bsky.social preprint, “Dynamic Markov blanket detection for macroscopic physics discovery,” by Jeff Beck and me arxiv.org/abs/2502.21217 Here’s a thread! 1/16

Excited to share a new blog post by @noumenal-labs.bsky.social

🚨 Career update 🚨 It brings me great happiness to announce my next professional endeavour: Serving as Chief Science Officer of Noumenal Labs @noumenal_labs (www.noumenal.ai). And we’re hiring! Check out the website to learn more.

Taken together, the free energy principle and the no free lunch theorem imply that lunch has no caloric value

Awesome opportunities at Noumenal Labs! @noumenal-labs.bsky.social

🚨 New publication 🚨 Excited to share our recent preprint “A mathematical perspective on neurophenomenology,” written in collaboration with Lancelot Da Costa, Lars Sandved Smith, Karl Friston, and @anilseth.bsky.social 1/5 arxiv.org/abs/2409.20318

OK this place is really alive.

This paper is now under review and preprinted for your convenience at osf.io/preprints/ps... Comments, feedback, questions, all welcome!

OK If we are moving to Bluesky I am rescuing my favourite ever twitter thread (Jan 2019). The renamed: Bluesky-sized history of neuroscience (biased by my interests)

"An Active-Inference Approach to Second-Person Neuroscience" now officially published in Perspectives on Psychological Science @psychscience.bsky.social Together with @dimitrisbolis.bsky.social @mjdramstead.bsky.social @leoschilbach.bsky.social @kanske.bsky.social doi.org/10.1177/1745...

So does anything ever happen here or what

Cognitive Neurorobotics Studies Utilizing the Free Energy Principle: Towards an Ontological Understanding of the Mind Jun Tani www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzKL...

I really enjoyed writing this short piece on the free energy principle for @dialecticalsys.bsky.social, which I hope will appeal to a broad multidisciplinary readership! I hope as well that you find it accessible and easy to read

And for those who missed it, in our most successful post so far, @mjdramstead.bsky.social introduces the Free Energy principle for the math dummies. www.dialecticalsystems.eu/contribution...

I'm making a 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗦𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗙𝗲𝗲𝗱 to help us move over. 👉 It follows all of the wonderful people in consciousness science. Everyone from ASSC, AMCS, MESEC, etc. is cordially invited! Ping me or answer to be added! Find it here: bsky.app/profile/did:... Initial list 😍 ⬇️

My blurb: "Not since William James has such meticulous attention been given to pure awareness experiences & their significance for science & philosophy. Metzinger has performed a Herculean labor & no future science of consciousness will be possible without assimilating his findings and arguments."

I can start: Representations booooooo! Direct perception yay!

Always my gripe with people griping about FEP— they don’t even understand a 1/4 of it. But they’ll parrot some dark room, entropy argument.