Can machines actually want things? Can they crave power, or scariest of all: Can they acquire the will to survive? In our latest Qualia column, writer Amanda Gefter explores some of the deeper questions behind our fear of total AI domination. www.quantamagazine.org/why-do-we-te...

Why three "demons" still keep physicists up at night. (Spoiler: they're associated with Maxwell, Laplace, and Loschmidt.) My latest for @newscientist.com: www.newscientist.com/article/2502... #physics

It's not just bad--it's painful. Honestly? This piece on AI's writing nails it. That overwrought, manic voice that echoes between man and machine. Delve in...if you dare. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/m...

Quantum interpretations may be empirically equivalent, but that doesn't mean their die hard fans don't enjoy trash talking the other teams. My own take on the spectator sport, for @nautil.us nautil.us/reality-exis...

What happens when you take a handful of scientists and philosophers, stick them in a 500-year-old church in the middle of Tuscany, and ask them to redefine "intelligence"? I had the transformative experience of finding out. nautil.us/what-is-inte...

Just a first quick little graphite sketch of Peter Putnam (@nautil.us knows who I’m talking about 🤩) #sketch #portrait #sketchbook #peterputnam #graphite #drawing #fanart #philosophy

📹 Philosopher Ezquiel Di Paolo discusses the idea that individuality is formed through, not against, the collective. #loveandphilosophy #philosophy #power youtube.com/shorts/LViHD...

In the summer of 1925, Werner Heisenberg retreated to Helgoland in the North Sea and reemerged with the first full-fledged version of quantum mechanics. A century later, physicists returned to Helgoland to take stock. @walkingthedot.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/its-a-mess-a...

The LGBTQ+ Archives Project of Louisiana has just placed a historic marker near Peter Putnam's former home on East Main St. in Houma. From dying anonymously on that stretch of road 4 decades ago to being publicly honored there for his radical life and brilliant work...what a beautiful thing.

I think a lot these days about the ways in which we are the keepers of other people's stories - the weight of that, the privilege, the responsibility. Which is why I want to tell you about Bob Fuller. 🧵

You have never read a science book like The Body Has a Head by Gustav Eckstein. His descriptions of biological mechanisms take flight on metaphoric reveries that compare what’s going on inside our bodies to the carnival of life outside them. 🧪

Look, speaking as a physicist, it is hard for me to put into words how batshit crazy this is.

A Borges story about a guy who gets AI to summarize all the world’s information for him, and then summarize the summary, until the AI has the whole world summarized into a single word. He sits alone at his desk, staring at the word, repeating it endlessly, certain he is experiencing everything

Wonderful interview with Ezequiel Di Paolo on the enactive approach to cognition, tracing the line from single cells all the way to language.

Tech gurus talk about colonizing Mars, building space stations, eradicating aging and death, and uploading minds. Not so fast, says @adambecker.bsky.social. In Ep 39 of BookLab, @amandagefter.bsky.social and I dive into Adam's new book, "More Everything Forever": booklabpodcast.com/booklab-039-...

Importantly, he seems to have recognized very early on that, unlike Turing's model of computation that was meant to model deductive procedures, induction can only be implemented by an open system whose axioms, rules of inference, and rules of interpretation are revisable based on experience.

He modeled the logic of induction; traced the contours of the embodied mind; hung out with Einstein, Wheeler, and Bohr; gave away millions for art and conservation; fought for civil and gay rights; and lived as a janitor. My new story in @nautil.us nautil.us/finding-pete...

What a gorgeous piece of writing by A. Kendra Greene in @nautil.us nautil.us/i-can-feel-y...

Today, a reporter from the Russian state news agency TASS gained unauthorized access to the Oval Office. How does one gain unauthorized access to the Oval Office? Meanwhile, AP and Reuters were blocked.

Episode 36 of BookLab is up! You know Galileo, Newton, and Einstein -- but what about the many women scientists who helped shape our understanding of the cosmos? In this episode, we look at 2 #books give those overlooked women the recognition they deserve. #science booklabpodcast.com/booklab-036-...

Nice conversation on implications of extended Wigner's friend scenarios with Časlav Brukner, Renato Renner, and Eric Cavalcanti youtu.be/NnAj66Z1kNQ

If you've been wondering how the Qbist interpretation of quantum mechanics and the enactive approach in cognitive science naturally complement each other, then this impressive paper by @amandagefter.bsky.social is for you. arxiv.org/abs/2411.042...

So much ice is melting from the poles that the water is redistributing Earth's mass and slowing its rotation 🧪 www.scientificamerican.com/article/glob...

"Cognitively speaking, we metabolize mistakes." I've been reading William Wimsatt and he expresses a core component of my teaching philosophy better than I ever managed.

Evidence from studies tracking pea plant movements “may shed light on the cognitive principles guiding movement…. The intention is not to reclassify plants as animals but to adopt effective analogies to compare cognitive abilities underlying the organization of behavior in plants and animals.” 🌱🐋🧪

1/2 I can't remember all the good books I read in 2023, but lemme mention one really cool one: my friend George Musser wrote "Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation: Why Physicists Are Studying Human Consciousness and AI to Unravel the Mysteries of the Universe."

It’s one of the oldest and most vexing questions in science and philosophy: Do we have free will? In Episode 34 of BookLab, we take a close look at two books by scientists who have considered the question at length -- and reached very different conclusions. 📕⚖️📗 booklabpodcast.com/booklab-034-...

By Tony Chemero www.nature.com/articles/s41...

hey, did we ever get an update on how this turned out

Great discussion with Tony Chemero covering a range of topics, great fun. From Ashar Khan's podcast Thing in Itself. www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FsZ...

It has always been a dream of mine to write for the New Yorker, so it feels right that my first piece for them should be about dreams. 🧵 #CogSci #Neuroscience #Sleep www.newyorker.com/science/elem...

Someone told me that this app may seem very empty because of this default setting that requires replies to have 2 likes or more before they show up. Indeed! I changed it so that all replies show up, and suddenly the place seems much more lively. I highly recommend changing it in your settings.

It from Qubit: The Last Hurrah https://quantumfrontiers.com/2023/08/08/it-from-qubit-the-last-harrah/

Both quantum mechanics and cognitive science suffer from the same wrong-headed split between 'observer' and 'observed', argues @amandagefter.bsky.social in her FQxI award-winning essay. Can we bridge the 400-year-old divide? s3.amazonaws.com/fqxi.data/data…

Episode 33 of BookLab is now up! We (me and @amandagefter.bsky.social) explore the world of possible minds as we dive into Philip Ball’s The Book of Minds. Plus: The Darkness Manifesto, by Johan Eklöf; and Existential Physics by Sabine Hossenfelder: 📕📗📘 booklabpodcast.com/booklab-033-th…

The most horrifying opening of any memoir...from Dream Life by the late Harvard Medical School psychiatrist J. Allan Hobson.

Sad to learn that gravitational physicist Charlie Misner has died.

Infinity is troublesome, so let’s consider discrete, finite models of physics. Discrete spacetime is one thing, but quantum states still live in smooth vector spaces. So I wondered if you could discretize Hilbert space. Yes! But there are some cosmological issues. https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.11927

This is the story of my life.

I'm not sure I can handle the Oppenheimer/Barbie convergence.

*Pokes blue sky with a stick*, cmon, do some thin’!

Hey everybody @siricarpenter.bsky.social is here -- Siri Carpenter, creator of The Open Notebook (TON). If you don't know TON yet, it's a fantastic resource for science writing (or any kind of communication) full of practical & inspiring advice https://www.theopennotebook.com

"The [slime mold] scenario is a kind of Prisoners’ Dilemma game where the number of players isn’t constant. Not only can you cooperate or defect, but you could also split and merge. How do you think about making decisions when the borders of your self are not fixed?" My chat with Michael Levin. 🧪