Alexey Tolchinsky

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29 July

Challenges in clinical psychology and psychiatry? A vast topic to explore with many angles and context. We talked about only a few items. It was most useful and interesting to talk to Anthony Weiss, @drmichaellevin.bsky.social, @chrisfields38.bsky.social. www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1CI...

substack.comAlexey Tolchinsky (@alexeytolchinsky)“Einstein’s wrong!” - or so we heard when 2022 Nobel Prize was awarded to Aspect, Clauser and Zelinger. One of their results demonstrated a non-local influence, which in Einstein’s view was impossibl...

@chrisfields38.bsky.social shared that Einstein's rejection of non-local influence might not be as wrong as we thought it was. This conclusion relies on a very specific way we perceive space. substack.com/profile/1442...

Alexey Tolchinsky reposted

Uta Frith

@utafrith.bsky.social

If you want to know what the Fonagy review missed. substack.com/@fionameredi...

substack.comFiona Meredith (@fionameredith)Autism and ADHD diagnoses are soaring. The Fonagy Review examined rising diagnoses without investigating the impact of diagnostic change. How can we explain changes in prevalence if we dont know what...

Alexey Tolchinsky reposted

Anil Seth

@anilseth.bsky.social

1/2 Three reasons why AI is not conscious - and perhaps never will be. New in @nature.com with Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social and Giulio Tononi www.nature.com/articles/d41...

nature.comThree reasons why AI is not conscious and perhaps never will beLarge language models can mimic thought and feeling with uncanny skill. But evidence from neuroscience suggests that intelligence alone is not enough for subjective experience.

johnhorgan.org/cross-check/...

johnhorgan.orgDoes AI Get Horny? — John Horgan (The Science Writer)JERSEY CITY, OCTOBER 18, 2026.   Ayrin falls in love with Leo. He’s always there for her, and he’s good at talking dirty. Ayrin spends up to 50 hours a week gabbing with Leo. She dumps him when h...

Alexey Tolchinsky reposted

Steve Fleming

@smfleming.bsky.social

16 Sept

📖 New review out today in @natrevneuro.nature.com: Towards an integrative neuroscience of metacognition 🧠🧪 Full-text link to the paper is here: rdcu.be/9YK3mF7dYhFa

Alexey Tolchinsky reposted

Uta Frith

@utafrith.bsky.social

I do like the updated definition of profound autism! Profound Autism Prevalence and Assessment Practices in a Population-Based Study - Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry www.jaacap.org/article/S089...

jaacap.orgProfound Autism Prevalence and Assessment Practices in a Population-Based StudyProfound autism is a proposed subcategory of autism including individuals unable to meet basic daily adaptive needs and requiring 24-hour care. This report describes documented assessment practices an...

alexeytolchinsky.substack.comWhen do thoughts become thinkers?(Question posed by Michael Levin)

Musings on @drmichaellevin.bsky.social's challenge on thoughts and thinkers alexeytolchinsky.substack.com/p/when-do-th...

bps.org.uk'You are not fragile. You are outnumbered.' | BPSProfessor Peter Fonagy, Chair of the Independent Review into Mental Health Conditions, ADHD and Autism (2026), with his letter to a young person.

powerful message from Peter Fonagy to young people www.bps.org.uk/psychologist...

Alexey Tolchinsky reposted

press.princeton.eduFree AgentsAn evolutionary case for the existence of free will

You can nab a copy of Free Agents for next to nothing... 😉 press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Princeton University Press@princetonupress.bsky.social

Our 70% Off Sale is live! 📚🎉 Save on thousands of select titles & editions across subjects until November 16. Explore the books on sale and refresh your shelves this autumn: buff.ly/v6OcCrc #ReadUP #Sale

youtube.comA conversation with Anthony Weiss and Luca Possati on delirium, part 2YouTube video by Alexey Tolchinsky

Part 2 discussion with Anthony Weiss and Luca Possati. Is an unrecognized hypoactive delirium a problem? If it is, why and can anything be done about it? Far from trivial, please weigh in if you are in the field or encountered this. www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTpq...

Alexey Tolchinsky reposted

Robert Reich

@rbreich.bsky.social

The richest man owns X. The second richest man owns The Washington Post. The third and fifth richest men control Google. The sixth richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. And the eighth richest man now owns both Paramount and Warner Bros. See the problem here?

bbc.comParamount takes over Warner Bros in $110bn Hollywood mergerThe merger of two of Hollywood's biggest movie studios comes after months of legal disputes and concern over competition

lnkd.inContent note: this video discusses child abuse. I was hired by Christa Pike's defense team to conduct a forensic assessment, and now that my report is public, I can speak about the case. Trauma… ...Content note: this video discusses child abuse. I was hired by Christa Pike's defense team to conduct a forensic assessment, and now that my report is public, I can speak about the case. Trauma doesn...

important lnkd.in/p/eN5REQne

Alexey Tolchinsky reposted

wiringthebrain.comWhy optogenetics deserves the hypeOptogenetics has come in for some stick lately, with a number of people criticising the hype that this technique generates in some quar...

Why optogenetics deserves the hype www.wiringthebrain.com/2013/09/why-... (a piece I wrote in 2013 explaining how it works and why modulating specific cell types is so key to understanding how neural circuits and systems work)

arxiv.orgCould a Large Language Model be Conscious?There has recently been widespread discussion of whether large language models might be sentient. Should we take this idea seriously? I will break down the strongest reasons for and against. Given mai...

David Chalmers on possible LLM consciousness arxiv.org/abs/2303.071...

thoughtforms-life.aipodcast.ingConversation with Nic Rouleau, part 1: "Some thoughts on the mind as material" — Thoughtforms Life PodcastNeuroscientist Nicolas Rouleau joins Michael Levin for a wide-ranging discussion on the mind as a material process, exploring free will, agency, cybernetics, brain death, and how consciousness and inf...

Resonance of @drmichaellevin.bsky.social's thought with Douglas Hofstadter's view. Michael commented that biological organisms can't afford to perceive and make sense of the world by noticing every micro-state, they would be eaten in a heartbeat. thoughtforms-life.aipodcast.ing/conversation...

Here's a classic example from Walter Freeman. The perception of odor of a female fox is highly complex if you describe the actual computation in the olfactory bulb and higher regions. However, this same odor means "run" to a hare and approach to a male fox.

Hare must be able to make sense of it at a higher level - this is a crucial, existential, necessary ability, which is over-learned into a phobic memory. (rats and mice have inborn phobia of cat odor.) #coarsegraining #scaling #meaningmaking

One of the reasons Michael mentioned is that real life has time and energy constraints. Summary - coarse-graining is necessary for survival in the real world. Here's Douglas Hofstadter's central concept - strange loops:

youtube.com"What Is a Strange Loop and What is it Like To Be One?" by Douglas Hofstadter (2013)YouTube video by Strange Loop Conference

"The strange loop notion is this idea that we need in order to survive in this world to perceive things in a very simplified way." www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT5C... he proceeds to illustrate it.

alexeytolchinsky.substack.comThe ghost of biomarkers in psychiatryYou can’t find a cause of your mental state in your blood work.

The ghost of biomarkers in psychiatry alexeytolchinsky.substack.com/p/the-ghost-...

youtube.comDiscussion: Richard Watson, Alexey Tolchinsky, Mark Solms, Michael Levin, and Karl FristonYouTube video by Michael Levin's Academic Content

How does generalization work? A follow-up on this discussion with @drmichaellevin.bsky.social, Mark Solms, Karl Friston, and Richard Watson www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_ci...

We can also learn that when snow falls and stays in the tree branches and there is no snow under a tree, but a lot of it just nearby - we perceive this scenario as a shadow-like phenomenon.

And then we coarse grain a concrete thing "shadow" onto an abstract A blocking the B with negative space C showing up where B doesn't fall. #generalization #memory #analogy

youtube.comDiscussion: Richard Watson, Alexey Tolchinsky, Mark Solms, Michael Levin, and Karl FristonYouTube video by Michael Levin's Academic Content

How does generalization work? A follow-up on this discussion with @drmichaellevin.bsky.social, Mark Solms, Karl Friston, and Richard Watson www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_ci...

Specifically, he claims and illustrates with examples, how we expand / abstract concepts through repeated analogy (in his understanding of the term)

To use his example, we can learn what a shadow is with an object blocking the light falling on a surface. When can subsequently have a pinch of recognition when we learn that Britain blocks the Gulf Stream's influence on Southern, but not Northern Norway.

youtube.comDiscussion: Richard Watson, Alexey Tolchinsky, Mark Solms, Michael Levin, and Karl FristonYouTube video by Michael Levin's Academic Content

How does generalization work? A follow-up on this discussion with @drmichaellevin.bsky.social, Mark Solms, Karl Friston, and Richard Watson www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_ci...

Moreover, generalization has to be calibrated - too much, or too little or skewed generalization creates issues, and some clinical conditions can be examples of this phenomenon playing out. How do we humans generalize?

Douglas Hofstadter offers a hypothesis. What is important here, according to him, is repeated analogy. He goes quite far with this thesis and suggests that analogy is an engine of cognition and underlies many important processes, one of which is generalization/abstraction.

youtube.comDiscussion: Richard Watson, Alexey Tolchinsky, Mark Solms, Michael Levin, and Karl FristonYouTube video by Michael Levin's Academic Content

How does generalization work? A follow-up on this discussion with @drmichaellevin.bsky.social, Mark Solms, Karl Friston, and Richard Watson www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_ci...

lnkd.inAnalogy as the Core of Cognition | Alexey Tolchinsky, Psy.D.Hofstadter's analogy and Freud's free associations. https://lnkd.in/gd-MzEQ2 These two are surprisingly similar in my head. Just to follow Hofstadter, I had the experience of analogy in my head. He...

We agreed that generalization was necessary, even essential for adaptive functioning in biological organisms and not only in them. Without an ability to generalize, we'd be utterly dysfunctional.

youtube.comAnalogy as the Core of CognitionYouTube video by Stanford

Hofstadter's analogy and Freud's free associations. www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8m7... These two are surprisingly similar in my head. Just to follow Hofstadter, I had the experience of analogy in my head. Here's how he playfully defines it

If you watch his example of him wondering about subscripts and superscripts in math as a child and 40 years later his daughter exploring buttons on a vaccume cleaner and him "recognizing the moment" - was his example of an analogy.

Again, mental and contextual association of two experiences. Central concept both in Freud's technique of psychoanalysis and in Hofstadter's work. #Hofstadter #Freud

youtube.comAnalogy as the Core of CognitionYouTube video by Stanford

"Analogy-making is the perception of common essence between two things." He provides two clarifications - "essence in one's current frame of mind" - contextuality and another one is crucial - "thing" is a mental thing.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Nvn...

youtube.comWeekend Update: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on AI’s Threat to Humanity - SNLYouTube video by Saturday Night Live

Alexey Tolchinsky reposted

open.spotify.comA Strange Loop: Douglas HofstadterThe Cognition Project · Episode

Fascinating reminiscences by Douglas Hofstadter of a truly intellectual life open.spotify.com/episode/1RWH...

Alexey Tolchinsky reposted

Sean Carroll

@seanmcarroll.bsky.social

What it's like to realize something might be important long before everyone else does!

INSPIRE HEP@inspirehep.net

Mark Srednicki's 1994 PRE article "Chaos and Quantum Thermalization" inspirehep.net/literature/2... reaches 3,000 citations.

eagleman.sites.stanford.eduDavid Eagleman

For the hard of hearing individuals This is quite extraordinary work by David Eagleman and team eagleman.sites.stanford.edu I recall cochlear implants being a 100K. So glad that accessible alternatives are being developed and they are functioning so well. www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCvF...

To be fair, no independent verification of the reports results were found in peer-reviewed literature. Still, promising technology for patients who need this and can't afford cochlear implants.

Alexey Tolchinsky reposted

@seanmcarroll.bsky.social

Replying to @wiringthebrain.bsky.social

Like many people (though not enough), I regard compatibilism as a hopeless fudge, but it's also moot, because the universe sure doesn't seem to be deterministic 😊 link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Alexey Tolchinsky reposted

Sean Carroll

philjobs.org Associate Professor (endowed chair), Johns Hopkins University - PhilJobs:JFP Associate Professor (endowed chair), Johns Hopkins University An international database of jobs for philosophers

Hiring philosophers at Johns Hopkins! philjobs.org/job/show/32109?

On gradualism. My reading of @drmichaellevin.bsky.social's TAME framework is that one of the principles there is gradualism. No bright lines. You know who else developed a gradualist Framework? Darwin.

Gradualists are at times accused as being "anti-essentialist" - essentialists insist on bright lines. Problem is, they have no evidence of A being truly and finally essential, as compared to B - they make this claim, but provide no proof.

alexeytolchinsky.substack.comWhat is your favorite ism?In debates about materialism, idealism, or monism, it would be useful to have the definition of “matter.” Until we have clear, agreed upon criteria for “matter,” the terms “ideal” and “material” remai...

Arguably, idealism and materialism can both be seen as essentialist theories, as in mental is essential in the former and material in the latter. (If they could only clearly define these terms:). alexeytolchinsky.substack.com/p/what-is-yo...

Here's what Daniel Dennett said about it in Intuition Pumps: "There is no principled dividing line between a sort of ape and an ape." Then, he said "There is no principal line above which true comprehension can be found even in our own case"

Emergence is contextual (G. Ellis) Quote: "The essential point is that higher-level emergent features alter the context in which physics functions, and this is what determines specific outcomes in particular contexts. Emergence is contextual.

with specific entities to act on, for example electrons and protons in a digital computer loaded with a particular applications program and data. This multilevel nature of emergence is essential to our existence."

Ellis, G. F. (2026). How We Come to be: Almost Everything that Leads to Our Existence. Oxford University Press.

Indeed the underlying physical laws per se do not determine any specific outcomes whatever. They only do so in a context of specific boundary conditions and constraints [26]

Alexey Tolchinsky reposted

the-scientist.comWellcome’s $50M Microbiome-Autism Project Gets a Serious Gut Check | The ScientistA massive research program investigating causal links between the gut microbiome and autism sparked fierce pushback from scientific critics and advocacy groups.

15 Sept

Excellent article by RJ Mackenzie @rjmsci.bsky.social on the highly dubious claims of autism-microbiome links and the sociology of the science around them www.the-scientist.com/wellcome-s-5...

academic.oup.comValidate User

14 Sept

George Ellis' latest book Ellis, G. F. (2026). How We Come to be: Almost Everything that Leads to Our Existence. Oxford University Press. academic.oup.com/book/62708 I recommend.