we have a lot of papers on deep learning but we need more deep papers on learning

Henry Schiller, Rational Learning - PhilPapers What is the difference between rational forms of learning and ‘arational’ forms of attitude change? I argue that rational learning occurs when a change in attitude is based on the acquisition ...

interesting paper on what makes a psychological event count as learning by henry schiller, who is not on bluesky. highly recommend it

philpapers.org/rec/SCHRLP-4

If AI was basically popular and useful but we couldn't monetize it, that'd be one thing. If we all loved the games and community and connections, great. That's not really the issue. It's not broadly useful, it's costly and environmentally damaging, and it destroys jobs without replacing them.

the sinking feeling when you see someone has cited your worst paper

New paper out in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: we apply linguistic tools to sperm whale vowels.

The result: sperm whale vowels do not just look like human vowels. They also behave like them.

We found several parallels. Like in Latin, whales have short and long vowels.

there is a large literature on neural mechanisms underlying visual adaptation that the authors are relying on

Binding Problem Hot Takes

We'd love to involve the broader VSS community in this event, starting now. We genuinely want to know where you stand on this topic, so please feel free to give us your open-ended hot takes here (the spiciest takes may be featured in the intro):

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

🧵Excited to announce—

"Reimagining the binding problem(s) for the 21st century": A VSS Symposium

St. Pete Beach
@vssmtg.bsky.social

May 15th, 10:30am

Presenters: Peter Tse, JohnMark Taylor, Seda Karakose-Akbiyik, Ana Chica, Anne Sereno, & Jake Quilty-Dunn

visionsciences.org/symposia/?sy...

the revolution has been a few years away for seventy years

hinton said to stop training radiologists because it was "completely obvious" that they'll be obsolete within five years. that was ten years ago

happy #CDS2026 to those who celebrate!

i think consciousness evokes people's sense of their private, inexpressible identity lurking behind all the stuff other people see and react to. representation is techy nerdy subpersonal stuff

i mean if i don't repost this asinine thing i made now, when will i

this fall i'm teaching intro to philosophy for the first time in over ten years. please, i am begging: share your syllabi!

the weirder the better!

no

The Very Idea of Seriousness What norms govern aesthetic conversations? In Hansen and Adams (2024), we argue for a norm we call, following Stanley Cavell, “the hope of agreement”, along with a requirement of “seriousness”, the “...

The next round of Zed and my work on aesthetic judgment and conversation: inspired by Susan Sontag we make the case for "seriousness" in aesthetic judgment and against vibing, communitarianism and the "omnivore monoculture". onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

New article! Many folks love their AI companions, and some philosophers argue current systems should count as "friends" functionally: they reciprocate "care" through positive intentions and rewarding experiences. 1/

philpapers.org/rec/BROAAT-37

This is a Blicket

amazing!!

it's bullshit when connections has ad-hoc barsalou-ass categories

We need to bring back the ideal of masculinity focused on quiet self-sacrifice for the sake of others. Alpha shit is for losers. Be a man and humbly forgo the shit you want for years so you can provide for your family, you indulgent little wuss

We should either (i) reject Bai et al.'s claim that core cognition of objects is really perceptual processing, or (ii) adopt a more radical theoretical revision of core cognition to accommodate persistent object representations that ignore Spelke principles.

3/3

figure illustrating experimental paradigms used to show that cohesion and spatial continuity are neither necessary nor sufficient for perceived object continuity

Our commentary cites evidence from the past 15 years of research on object continuity in vision science demonstrating that the famous Spelke criteria for objecthood - including spatial continuity and cohesion - are neither necessary nor sufficient for object continuity in visual perception.

E. J. Green & Jake Quilty-Dunn, Perceptual object continuity is not governed by core-cognitive principles - PhilPapers (Commentary on target article "Core Perception: Re-imagining Precocious Reasoning as Sophisticated Perceiving" by Bai, Hafri, Izard, Firestone, & Strickland.) Bai et al. claim that perceptua...

New commentary on Bai et al.'s BBS target article, co-authored with E. J. Green.

Bai et al. argue that core cognition should be reconceptualized as perceptual.

We argue that principles of object continuity in visual perception do not match traditional principles of core object cognition.

Perfect

glib, evidence-avoidant critiques of dissonance theory exemplify the central claims of the theory

Happy St. Patrick's Day, New York.

scenes from the MIT philosophy department

great thread

I think Fodor & Pylyshyn's 1988 paper is possibly the most mischaracterized paper in the history of cognitive science. It's often cited as arguing that neural networks cannot achieve systematicity, compositionality, and productivity. But that's not what they actually argue...