Borjan (Boki) Milinković

Borjan (Boki) Milinković

@neuromorphicboki.bsky.social

Mathematical Neuroscientist. Biologically Inclined Postdoc Researcher @ Destexhe Lab, CNRS, Paris-Saclay Exploring brains and minds, in humans and machines. consciousness . synthetic systems . emergence . computation . information . autonomy . causality

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Borjan (Boki) Milinković
@neuromorphicboki.bsky.social

📜 FINALLY OUT! 📜 In @imagingneurosci.bsky.social (@mitpress.bsky.social), myself, Lionel Barnett, @anilseth.bsky.social, Olivia carter, and @thomasandrillon.bsky.social, advance approaches of #multiscale #emergence and it's application to EEG across #conscious #states. Buckle up 👇 1/n

direct.mit.eduEmergent multiscale organisation of neural dynamics fragments in anaesthesiaAbstract. Conscious experience depends on the coordinated activity of neural processes that span multiple scales: from synapses to whole-brain dynamics. A recently introduced measure, dynamical indepe...

Borjan (Boki) Milinković reposted

Models of Consciousness
@moc7.bsky.social

That’s a wrap on #MoC7! Thanks so much to our organizers, speakers, moderators, chairs, volunteers, and all the wonderful participants for making this conference possible. More highlights coming soon ♥️ Safe travels, and see you at #MoC8!

Borjan (Boki) Milinković
@neuromorphicboki.bsky.social

Top of the game, and a great resource for understanding a wide variety of opinions on the topic of #AI #Consciousness

Anil Seth@anilseth.bsky.social

1/2 🎇 Good news! 🎇 The kind people at Behavioral and Brain Science have made the new collection on "Conscious AI and biological naturalism" #OpenAccess for a limited time: target article, all 50 commentaries, & my response. Go to the link and click 'save pdf': doi.org/10.1017/S014.... Do share!

Borjan (Boki) Milinković
@neuromorphicboki.bsky.social

Variations_on_a_theme_270926. #Emergent #Multiscale #Organisation across (un)conscious states. I’ve been toying with how we visualise data as #digital #art- (ifacts). I am using @blender.org‘s particle systems, scientific data is the medium. Art accompanying the publication.

Borjan (Boki) Milinković@neuromorphicboki.bsky.social

📜 FINALLY OUT! 📜 In @imagingneurosci.bsky.social (@mitpress.bsky.social), myself, Lionel Barnett, @anilseth.bsky.social, Olivia carter, and @thomasandrillon.bsky.social, advance approaches of #multiscale #emergence and it's application to EEG across #conscious #states. Buckle up 👇 1/n

direct.mit.eduEmergent multiscale organisation of neural dynamics fragments in anaesthesiaAbstract. Conscious experience depends on the coordinated activity of neural processes that span multiple scales: from synapses to whole-brain dynamics. A recently introduced measure, dynamical indepe...
Borjan (Boki) Milinković
@neuromorphicboki.bsky.social

Well, it appears it does. Results of this projection were differentiable and didn't inform us of the #scale #integration, nor of the #multiscale #organisation of the dynamics, a descriptive utility that *only* emerges when we #unfold the #multiscale #dynamics. 16/n

Borjan (Boki) Milinković
@neuromorphicboki.bsky.social

There is so much more to say on this, but I implore you to grasp out with your minds and read the paper (if you are so interested), this thread is already getting out of hand. As always I welcome all and any feedback. This has been a tremendous pleasure. 17/n

Borjan (Boki) Milinković
@neuromorphicboki.bsky.social

But we can do some stats as well, and we show that #wakefulness reveals a significantly more structured emergent landscape across scales than both, #propofol and #xenon, but, when #compared to #ketamine, some preservation of structure is revealed in ketamine too! 12/n

Borjan (Boki) Milinković
@neuromorphicboki.bsky.social

Giving us a proxy for the organisation of the energy landscape, or emergent landscape at those scales. We introduce the #structure-#fragmentation (SF) index to ascertain the degree of (dis)organisation of the #multiscale #emergent landscape of dynamics. 11/n

Borjan (Boki) Milinković
@neuromorphicboki.bsky.social

But, that is only one of interesting questions that arose. We also explored the organisation of the #emergent #landscape across each respective scale. We compare the 100 minimal n-macros found on each scale, n, and obtain a 'similarity score' of lower-dim spaces. 10/n

Borjan (Boki) Milinković
@neuromorphicboki.bsky.social

Neat, right!? I was intuitively expecting to relate more emergent neural dynamics with conscious awareness. But this opened up a #fascinating #Q (4 years ago now): might #multiscale #integration, at least in this sense, be a marker of wake? Does anaesthesia disturb this? 8/n

Borjan (Boki) Milinković
@neuromorphicboki.bsky.social

We define emergence by a dual property which (i) captures the degree of dynamical closure of the macro w.r.t the micro, and (ii) IDs the organisation of the emergent landscape on each scale. This gives us a working definition of multiscale emergence. 5/n

Borjan (Boki) Milinković
@neuromorphicboki.bsky.social

But, what the hell is #multiscale #emergence anyway(?!) In this paper, what we mean by it is captured by identifying lower-dimensional subspaces we call 'n'-macros in EEG which represent dynamically closed dynamics. We do this across dimensionalities, i.e., across scales. 3/n

Borjan (Boki) Milinković
@neuromorphicboki.bsky.social

The n-macros' #dynamical #closure, or, #dynamical *independence* is simply an information-theoretic measure of vanishing information flow from the microscopic scale to the macroscopic (journals.aps.org/pre/abstract...) 4/n

journals.aps.orgDynamical independence: Discovering emergent macroscopic processes in complex dynamical systemsWe introduce a notion of emergence for macroscopic variables associated with highly multivariate microscopic dynamical processes. Dynamical independence instantiates the intuition of an emergent macro...
Borjan (Boki) Milinković
@neuromorphicboki.bsky.social

An incredible effort and resource for those exploring the myriad positions on the relevance of biology to synthetic systems and beyond. Well done @anilseth.bsky.social!

Anil Seth@anilseth.bsky.social

1/ Conscious AI and Biological Naturalism. A long time in the making, but the full collection is *out now* in Behavioural and Brain Sciences I deeply thank all my many commentators for their wise, broad, and deep opinions on this critical topic.I also thank them for their saintly patience. 🙏🏽

Borjan (Boki) Milinković reposted

Mel Andrews
@bayesianboy.bsky.social

The use of major open problems in mathematics as AI benchmarks mistakes the nature and aims of mathematics: “solving problems is only a tool and proxy for achieving the primary goal of conceptual understanding and insight.”

Terence Tao@teorth.bsky.social

A group of 25 Fields Medalists, including myself, have made a joint declaration on Math and AI: mathandai.org . We welcome additional signatories. See also this article in the Economist announcing the declaration: www.economist.com/science-and-...

mathandai.orgDeclaration — Math and AIRead the declaration and add your name.

Borjan (Boki) Milinković reposted

Nathan Lambert
@natolambert.bsky.social

A great read. I have similar feelings about how AI labs approach progress directly and without nurturing of scientific communities & intuition. The math research community went through the transition the fastest, so it was felt most. Other fields next. terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/09/11/a...

terrytao.wordpress.comA Severe Misalignment of AI in MathematicsI am proud to be among the list of 25 initial signatories — all Fields Medallists — to the declaration below, which grew out of discussions between ourselves over the last week. We have…

Borjan (Boki) Milinković reposted

Hardik Rajpal
@h-rajpal.bsky.social

What role does Emergence play in Neural Networks? We find that learning emergent low-dimensional representations is key for out-of-distribution generalisation. New Preprint out with @neural-reckoning.org arxiv.org/abs/2607.10430

arxiv.orgEmergent Generalization by Representation Learning in Artificial Neural NetworksDimensionality reduction has proven powerful for identifying neural manifolds, which are low-dimensional structures underlying high-dimensional neural activity. These low-dimensional representations h...

Borjan (Boki) Milinković reposted

Quanta Books
@quantabooks.org

Cover reveal for David Tong's EVERYTHING IS FIELDS, publishing March 16, 2027! From one of today’s leading theoretical physicists comes a witty, exuberant tour of quantum fields, the fluid-like substances that make up our entire universe.

Borjan (Boki) Milinković reposted

The Transmitter
@thetransmitter.bsky.social

@macshine.bsky.social talks with @satra.bsky.social about the #OHBM2026 Abstract Atlas—a community-built tool that places every 2026 abstract inside the broader neuroscience landscape. Where does your work sit in the field? #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/open-source-...

thetransmitter.orgFinding your place in neuroscienceA new tool places every OHBM 2026 abstract inside a semantic map of the neuroscience literature, so you can find your neighbors.
Borjan (Boki) Milinković
@neuromorphicboki.bsky.social

Congratulations @adriendoerig.bsky.social and @ulysse-klatzmann.bsky.social. Some worthy notes in here, and glad more are pursuing thinking in this direction. Onward and upward!

Adrien Doerig@adriendoerig.bsky.social

1/n New preprint: What biology can, and cannot, tell us about conscious AI arxiv.org/abs/2606.02121 With @ulysse-klatzmann.bsky.social

arxiv.orgWhat biology can, and cannot, tell us about conscious AIProgress in AI is turning machine consciousness from a philosophical curiosity into a societal issue, and has led to criticism of the widespread computational functionalism framework. Biological Natur...
Borjan (Boki) Milinković
@neuromorphicboki.bsky.social

The amount of times I have used LLMs and noticed them severely lacking in critical analyses with many incorrect assumptions, particularly on the edge-cases of knowledge, is astounding. If reviewers are using AI to help review articles this is a tragedy for new ideas and science! I beg, don't.

Borjan (Boki) Milinković
@neuromorphicboki.bsky.social

Given my *obvious* predilections, this will be a keen and interesting read. ✌️😅

Institute of Art and Ideas@iai.tv

"Emergence" has become one of the most fashionable words in science and philosophy — invoked to explain consciousness, life, and the flow of time. | https://bit.ly/46MVPjM But John Heil argues it's little more than intellectual sleight of hand, mistaking gaps in our explanation for gaps in reality.