Shawn Prest

@shawnprest.bsky.social

Researcher at the intersection of meditation, consciousness, perception and active inference at the Monash Centre for Consciousness and Contemplative Studies/Meditation Research Program, MGH in affiliation with Harvard Med. School Web: shawnprest.com

I'm here in Santiago, Chile for ASSC 29 @theassc.bsky.social I'll be giving the following talks today: "What can meditative experience teach us about affective valence: A computational perspective on the determinants of affect" In Session 6 Meditation & Contemplative States / July 1, 3:00 PM

My paper modelling and simulating meditative deconstruction via letting go is now out open access in Neural Computation at @mitpress.bsky.social 🧠 I show how the phenomenology of experiential deconstruction (defabrication) naturally emerges from the dynamics of hierarchical active inference. 🧵

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.

🚨🚨JOB ALERT🚨🚨 I'm hiring a cogsci/philosophy/compneuro postdoc at @ucl.ac.uk @uclbrainscience.bsky.social @uclpals.bsky.social! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DRH486/p... Come to London & work on frameworks for "testing" for consciousness using Bayesian belief updating & latent variable modeling. Pls share!

Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UCL

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I'm excited to share our preprint: "Selfing without a self: The missing dimension of identification in computational accounts of selfhood" The puzzle: How can meditators claim persistent selfless experience without dysfunction when computational accounts claim it's maladaptive? 🧵 t.ly/vDv4n

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"The Self-Evidencing Agent" - my new book - is out now with @mitpress.bsky.social Can be purchased, or just download the whole thing for free, via the 'Open Access' option. I'm grateful to @anilseth.bsky.social and Karl Friston for the generous endorsements. mitpress.mit.edu/978026255389...

The Self-Evidencing Agent

What is it to be a human individual, an agent? According to Jakob Hohwy, it is to “self-evidence,” to actively seek out sensory evidence for one&...

mitpress.mit.edu

📢Maths in the Brain Workshop 2026 in Melbourne. We will bring together researchers across Australia with a shared interest in understanding the brain from a quantitative perspective. This year's keynote is delivered by Professor James Cole, University College London. 1/4🧵

We're hiring a Program Manager to join the Meditation Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. This is a hands-on role for someone who wants to be in the thick of our efforts. You would work closely with us to drive our current projects forward.... ⤵️

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Interdisciplinarity Through Research Collaboration & Philosophy and Neuroscience Mentorship Program applications are due 2.28.26. Visit our website for more information.

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A lovely Christmas present: this paper led by Henrik Röhr is now out: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/YCJX8T... In this paper, we predict on a single-trial level whether someone is practising a self-boundary dissolution meditation practice on the basis of their EEG data

Decoding the Self: Single‐Trial Prediction of Self‐Boundary Meditation States From Magnetoencephalography Recordings

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onlinelibrary.wiley.com

I'm biased, but I think Neuromatch has done a lot of good in helping make computational science education accessible. Please consider donating to help us continue!

Neuromatch@neuromatch.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Today is #GivingTuesday! Join us in helping to make computational science education accessible to everyone, everywhere! Since, 2021, Neuromatch Academy and Climatematch Academy have supported nearly 14,000 learners from 135 countries. Your support makes this possible. neuromatch.io/donate/