BI 234 Juan Gallego: The Neural Manifold Manifesto * __ Facebook * __ Twitter * __ LinkedIn Brain Inspired BI 234 Juan Gallego: The Neural Manifold Manifesto Play Episode Pause Episode Mute/Unmute Episode Rewind 10 Seconds 1x Fast Forward 30 seconds 00:00 / 02:01:31 Subscribe Share Apple Podcasts Spotify Stitcher RSS Feed Share Link Embed Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 02:01:31 | Recorded on March 25, 2026 Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher * * * **Support the show to get full episodes, full archive, and join the Discord community**. _The Transmitter_ is an online publication that aims to deliver useful information, insights and tools to build bridges across neuroscience and advance research. Visit thetransmitter.org to explore the latest neuroscience news and perspectives, written by journalists and scientists. Read more about our partnership. Check out this story: Neural manifolds: Latest buzzword or pathway to understand the brain? Sign up for Brain Inspired email alerts to be notified every time a new Brain Inspired episode is released. To explore more neuroscience news and perspectives, visit thetransmitter.org. Juan Gallego runs the Neocybernetics Lab at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown in Lisbon, Portugal, affiliated with the neuroscience of disease and neuroscience programs, and the centre for restorative neurotechnology. Juan has worked a lot on neural manifolds – the mathematical objects neuroscience is using more and more to describe how big populations of neurons coordinate their activity to do useful things. In fact, he recently gave a short talk that he titled The Manifold Manifesto, because he was asked to be provocative. And he was provocative, suggesting that manifolds are real – as real as chairs and tables are, that they have causal power, and they might be a target of evolution. Of course he talked about his own and others work to support those claims. So today we discuss many of those themes, through the lens of his own and others work, and we talk about what keeps him up at night about the possible limits of using manifolds to connect brain activity with behavior and mental phenomena. He’s not just a manifold person, though. Juan is more broadly interested in motor control and how brains do it. We also discuss his work in patients with spinal cord injuries, who don’t have enough nerve connections to their muscles to actually move, but have enough nerve connections that some signal gets through. Juan and his colleagues can detect that little bit getting through, and use it to infer what behaviors the patients intend to do, and they can use that information to control actions in a computer simulation. The hope is that this will translate to controlling prosthetics to give spinal cord injury patients their mobility again. * Neocybernetics Lab. * @juangallego.bsky.social * Related papers * A neural manifold view of the brain. * A neural implementation model of feedback-based motor learning. * Conjoint specification of action by neocortex and striatum. * Integrating across behaviors and timescales to understand the neural control of movement. * Evolutionarily conserved neural dynamics across mice, monkeys, and humans. 0:00 – Intro 4:37 – Manifolds 14:30 – Strengths and weaknesses 24:32 – Conserved manifolds across animals and species 34:31 – Causality and manifolds 47:29 – Constraints and causes 51:05 – What to measure 58:55 – Complexity and manifolds 1:10:29 – Juan’s background 1:14:08 – Prosthetics for spinal cord injuries 1:41:06 – Integrating across behaviors and timescales 1:46:56 – Conjoint specification of action by neocortex and striatum.

Thx Paul for a very informative and inspired Brain Inspired.
https://braininspired.co/podcast/234/
#neuroscience #reductionism (not) #behaviour

Thx Paul for a very informative and inspired Brain Inspired.
#neuroscience #reductionism (not) #behaviour

The Western Front: Situation on September 25th, 1918. Published [London] by the Dept. of National Defence, Historical Section. Legend shows positions of Allied Divisions (British, French, American, Belgium, Italian, Portuguese), and Enemy Divisions (German, Austro-Hungarian). Estimated by Intelligence, British GHQ.

The Western Front: Situation on September 25th, 1918. Published [London] by the Dept. of National Defence, Historical Section. Portion: shows the entire western front and both the Allied (British, French, American, Belgium, Italian, Portuguese), and Enemy (German, Austro-Hungarian) divisions.

The Western Front: Situation on September 25th, 1918. Published [London] by the Dept. of National Defence, Historical Section. Portion: Shows the British Army Divisions (North 2nd, 5th, 1st, 3rd, 4th South) and the German army Divisions (North 4th, 6th, 7th, 2nd, 18th South).

he Western Front: Situation on September 25th, 1918. Published [London] by the Dept. of National Defence, Historical Section. Portion: Shows the French/American Army Divisions (West 1st, 10th, 5th, 4th, American East).

The Western Front: Situation on September 25th, 1918.
archive.org/details/WCWd...
#abstract #detached #topdown #rationalized #reductionism #omniscient #cartographicgaze #birdseyeview #godseyeview #ReneDescarte #panopticon a #simplified #rendering of #carnage

OP ".. relations between observers must be regarded as empirical data and predictable, #intersubjectivity ‘should be built properly into the theory’ itself."

Here's an idea: let's learn from #history rather than repeat it. Yes, easier said than done.

💭 End obsessions w/integers & #reductionism.

I'd say that one of the 1st things that constrains which problems are picked, & how those problems are framed is very often the maths.

#Reductionism helps make simplifying assumptions 'doable,' but that usually gets swept under the rug & forgotten by subsequent generations, & calcifies into dogma.

This phenomenon is #fractal, repeating at different scales.

Intra-mind, mind-2-mind, mind-2-system, system-2-system.

Life evolved within a Dead Universe? This binary is not useful here, though it still works for cats. (I see u Irwin)

#reductionism v #holism

bsky.app/profile/malt... #coordination

Saying that private (or public) equity doesn't cause changes to consumer behavior is like saying that lakes & oceans have nothing to do w/rain. "It's the clouds, dummy."

One reason that #reductionism survives so well in science is that it dominates society in general. It's a key to #disinformation.

The LEGO guide to reductionism

Here's the latest cross-posting to the @febspress.bsky.social Network, and a rather playful one this time: the #Lego guide to #reductionism 😊👇
network.febs.org/posts/the-le...

Too Narrow to Be Wise: The Tunnel Vision Trap of Modern Expertise We live in a Kafkaesque paradox: the very people we turn to for wisdom about life’s biggest questions—meaning, society, the future of humanity—are systematically selected for their inability to think ...

Society has lost its direction. We are now driving blind, and the reason is reductionism. We’ve become so obsessed with breaking the world into tiny parts that we’ve forgotten how the whole thing actually hangs together.

www.ocrampal.com/too-narrow-t...

#SystemsThinking #Reductionism #Holism

The Scientific Discipline Food Chain

The Scientific Discipline Food Chain

#Reductionism #Science #Hierarchy #Interdisciplinary #Philosophy

sciencehumor.io/science-memes/the-scient...

youtube.com/watch?v=2Ywm...

Sleep Archive - Elephant Island

#SleepArchive #ElephantIsland #dubtechno #minimaltechno #techno #berlintechno #hardwax #chainreaction #basicchannel #electronic #hypnotic #reductionism #machinefunk #sounddesign #edm

Hegel and the Mechanistic Worldview A rare opportunity to study in detail one of the most overlooked chapters in Hegel’s Science of Logic, and to learn about its place in the history of ideas. Hegel’s Mechanism provides crucial insights into his thinking about essential topics in the history of science and in civil society.

📢 OPEN FOR REGISTRATION! Hegel and the Mechanistic Worldview is now open for enrollment! ⚙️ First seminar begins Feb 1. Sign up in the link below:
https://sphil.xyz/courses/hegel-mechanistic-worldview #hegel #mechanistic #reductionism #process

A yellow bulldozer parked beside a sign that reads "COMMUNISM NO CAPITOLISM YES" with a large tree and some buildings in the background.

Rural California propaganda. Red Bluff, 2018. #photography #politics #reductionism

If I had to guess, I'd say that 95% of comment sections (if not posts) on social media are a combination of reductionism and *outrageous* amounts of confirmation bias.

#confirmationbias #reductionism #reductionist #socialmedia #socialmediaisadisease #misanthrope #misanthropy #bias #Imtiredboss

what does it mean to provide a "scientific explanaion"?

should "strict reductionism" be considered a "highest standard", or just one of many alternative options?

#reductionism #science #philosophy #strictReductionism #strictReductionist #

The Hulk's Quantum Breakdown

The Hulk's Quantum Breakdown

#Physics #Reductionism #Quantum #Philosophy #Science

sciencehumor.io/physics-memes/the-hulks-...

#science #scientism #reductionism #scienceandfaith #AlisterMcGrath

Saving this as a demo showing that smart people I sometimes agree with can get themselves ratioed.

#AI #reductionism

#bskyart #artai #velms #iconoplasm #AIArt #AIArtist #AIArtwork #AIimages #GenArt #DigitalArt #mysterymachine #scoobydoo #surrealism #reductionism #cartoon #popart #AIArtGallery #AIGeneratedArt #AIArtCommunity #synthart #weirdcore

Reduced Velma

Political parties are the Poster Children of #reductionism taken too far.

Yes, it's true that not everyone will be interested or knowledgeable enough, or simply not have the time to participate in governance, but this does not excuse grandiose, untestable claims & magical overtones
as a baseline.

Important for discussions about agency and free will:
Hermida M, Ladyman J (2025): Physical Explanation and the Autonomy of Biology. Philosophy of Science :1–18.
#neuroscience #consciousness #freewill #reductionism

Important for discussions about agency and free will:
Hermida M, Ladyman J (2025): Physical Explanation and the Autonomy of Biology. Philosophy of Science :1–18.
#neuroscience #consciousness #freewill #reductionism

Thomas Fuchs: Understanding #consciousness – connecting #body and #technology – #embodiment

#Zoomposium with #ThomasFuchs: “Embodied consciousness,” in which he advocates for the #paradigm of embodiment and against #reductionism.

More at: youtu.be/1ouxs6P3Enc

or: philosophies.de/index.php/20...

The Ultimate Zoom Settings Of Reality

The Ultimate Zoom Settings Of Reality

#Scale #Microscope #Interdisciplinary #Reductionism #Scientificperspective

sciencehumor.io/science-memes/the-ultima...

I wrote this in 2021 on #reductionism and the Metaverse; Heaven or Hell? – But it applies to AI as well:). Gerd Leonhard Futurist Humanist Author Keynote Speaker buff.ly/3MkXnsW

Disque du jour
EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble / James Weeks (Performers) - Jürg Frey (Composer) "Voices"
(Neu Records/2025)
#Chorale #Reductionism

Black-and-white logic can sometimes work even for complex systems. But it ignores the ways in which parts interact with one another. Reductionism may serve to explain how a bird flies, but not how a flock of birds move in unison. It may describe internal combustion, but not traffic patterns. It may describe electric patterns in the brain, but not consciousness, and it’s unlikely that anyone or anything—not even the world’s most powerful computers—will ever fully analyze the interactions that make for healthy soil. Mark Bittman, Animal, Vegetable, Junk (Mariner)

#SystemsThinking
#HolisticApproach
#ComplexSystems
#Reductionism
#Sustainability
#EmergentBehavior
#Interconnectedness

8/10 The uncritical application of this mathematical logic to social phenomena often results in a reductionist perspective, homogenizing diverse realities and fostering an illusion of predictability by sidelining non-quantifiable human dimensions. #SocialScience #Reductionism

If creationism is wrong, why does the banana fit so perfectly in the hand? Aleks Storlid's answer: Well why does a frozen banana fit perfectly in my ass to stimulate my prostate? Y’all better not be calling it “sodomy” then!

#philosophy #relationalism #Epistemology #reductionism #realism

www.quora.com/If-creationi...