Fernando Rosas
@frosas.bsky.social
Emergence, synergy, brains, AI safety, mental health
New blogpost: “The separation principle: Where do beliefs and desires come from?” A discussion of technical results that offer a formal ground to explain why agentic systems exhibit distinct properties that may be interpreted as “beliefs” and “desires” www.lesswrong.com/posts/awMDNhoL6J97s6wFJ
lesswrong.com
Ever wonder what "information" really means? Here's our new paper, led by @frosas.bsky.social, that lays out the multiple ways the term is used in natural science. rdcu.be/fCDGv
Fernando Rosas@frosas.bsky.social · 6d agoWhat is information, really? Instead of arguing for a single valid interpretation, we propose a pluralistic view where rigorous alternatives coexist — each with affordances and limits Finally published: “Four faces of information in natural systems” 🧵
What is information, really? Instead of arguing for a single valid interpretation, we propose a pluralistic view where rigorous alternatives coexist — each with affordances and limits Finally published: “Four faces of information in natural systems” 🧵
Our new paper in @natureportfolio.nature.com. Psychedelics don’t simply disorder the brain. We found hidden, context-sensitive organisation beneath the apparent chaos -- strongest in people reporting more positive, profound experiences and a reduced sense of separation from the world. 🧵👇
I've written a solo philosophy paper. link.springer.com/article/10.1... What is real? I argue we should understand reality through resistance — how things push back against our grasp. And smart contracts now give artifacts the kind of "outside" that once belonged only to nature. 🧵
Artificial Externality: A Three-Layer Model of Reality from Substrate to Smart Contract - Philosophy & Technology
What is real has always been something we find, not something we make—or so philosophy has assumed. This paper argues otherwise. Characterizing reality through resistance rather than substance (the wa...
link.springer.com
This week's #PaperILike is "People construct simplified mental representations to plan" (Ho et al., Nature 2022). People generate ("construe") simplified task representations on-the-fly. (Robots should too!) Also: awesome first paragraph. PDF: arxiv.org/abs/2105.06948
People construct simplified mental representations to plan
One of the most striking features of human cognition is the capacity to plan. Two aspects of human planning stand out: its efficiency and flexibility. Efficiency is especially impressive because plans...
arxiv.org
Confused about all this talk of compositionality in neuroscience? Read our new perspective www.nature.com/articles/s41... with authors Reidar Riveland and Alex Pouget.
The compositionality continuum as a principle for studying the neural basis of intelligence - Nature Neuroscience
Compositionality exists on a continuum of increasing complexity rather than as a binary trait. Studying its implementation in simpler biological and artificial systems is the most tractable path towar...
nature.com
Finally published: “Loops all the way up: Recurrency as an implementation-first primitive for consciousness” There are 200+ theories of consciousness, mostly talking past each other. Despite their differences, most give central stage to one key notion: Recurrence 🧠 🔁
This time, celebrating 19 days of being “on hold” on arXiv! “A Braitenberg vehicle’s habitat”, w/ @frosas.bsky.social and Filippo Torresan. Accepted at ALIFE 2026. What part of the environment constitutes an agent’s effective world, its habitat? 1/
New paper with @doctorjosh.bsky.social, @drmichaellevin.bsky.social, and co-first author Vaibhav Pai. This one is a doozy - in it we show that we can modulate the degree of emergent, multicellular organization in a Xenobot with an exogenous compound (ATP). 1/N www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Purinergic signaling disrupts emergent patterns of multicellular coordination in basal Xenobots.
The ability of self-organizing systems to display emergent, adaptive capabilities is a fundamental feature of biological life. Understanding the mechanisms by which cells co-ordinate at the micro-scal...
biorxiv.org
Got a great TMLR paper but missed the RLC deadline? Following last year’s success, @RL_Conference is back with a Journal-to-Conference track! Accepted TMLR papers within scope are invited to submit for consideration. Please submit here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
RLC Journal to Conference Track
This form is used to organize applications for journal papers to be presented at https://rl-conference.cc/.
docs.google.com
𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗮 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗱𝗼 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝘄𝗮𝘆? Fascinating and profound book on what brains are *not* and what they might be. Including criticism of the computational and predictive brain frameworks. You might not agree with some of it but quite thought provoking.
We wrote a book! www.cambridge.org/core/books/s... Consciousness science is a fascinating but bewildering field: many competing theories, little consensus, and big open questions. If you are looking for an accessible guide through this complex landscape, this book is for you.
Scientific Theories of Consciousness
Cambridge Core - Neurosciences - Scientific Theories of Consciousness
cambridge.org
To be provocative, 𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 might be a sleight of hand if you don't know enough math to understand what it means. There, I said it.
Institute of Art and Ideas@iai.tv · 4mo ago"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.
How the right embodiment can simplify planing ✨
ContempraInn 🌹@contemprainn.bsky.social · 4mo agoThe landing technique of Swans 🦢
A computational theory of Aha! moments! New paper explaining why Aha! moments occur & why they feel so good. TLDR: They are a form of meta-cognitive prediction errors i.e. they occur when we surprise ourselves about our own abilities! @rachitdubey.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
🎉 📜 NEW #PREPRINT !! 📜 🎉 Spearheaded by Adam Barrett we tried to tackle some of the challenges of IIT. We confront aspects worth delving into, with an incredible team of collaborators, inc. Pedro Mediano, @frosas.bsky.social, Daniel Bor, Lionel Barnett, and @anilseth.bsky.social.
Integrated information theory: the good, the bad and the misunderstood
The integrated information theory of consciousness (IIT) is uniquely ambitious in proposing a mathematical formula, derived from apparently fundamental properties of conscious experience, to describe ...
arxiv.org
What makes brains (un)conscious? We provide new answers—and a universal mammalian blueprint for information processing—in a cross-species study of humans, macaques, marmosets & mice. Exploring convergent breakdown of integration in: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Led by @loopyluppi.bsky.social
Convergent transcriptomic and connectomic controllers of information integration and its anaesthetic breakdown across mammalian brains - Nature Human Behaviour
Luppi et al. identify transcriptomic and connectomic controllers of information integration and its breakdown induced by anaesthesia in humans, macaques, marmosets and mice.
nature.com
Join us for a postdoc @ the Donders Institute; application deadline March 24. www.ru.nl/en/working-a...
Postdoc Position: Affective Neuroscience and Computational Psychiatry at the Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging | Radboud University
Do you want to work as a Postdoc at the Faculty of Social Sciences? Check our vacancy!
ru.nl
The Mammalian Architecture of Information Integration🧠🧬 For #BrainAwarenessWeek, excited to share our latest work about #Neuroscience of #Consciousness in @nathumbehav.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵👇
Convergent transcriptomic and connectomic controllers of information integration and its anaesthetic breakdown across mammalian brains - Nature Human Behaviour
Luppi et al. identify transcriptomic and connectomic controllers of information integration and its breakdown induced by anaesthesia in humans, macaques, marmosets and mice.
nature.com
Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard have been named the winners of the A.M. Turing Award, one of the highest honors in computing, for their work establishing the foundations of quantum information theory. The award comes with a $1 million prize. www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-cryp...
Just out in @natneuro.nature.com! 🧠 “Competitive interactions shape mammalian brain network dynamics and computation” www.nature.com/articles/s41... Is large-scale brain communication purely cooperative — or is competition a core organizing principle? We built 🧠 models to find out: read on🧵👇
Competitive interactions shape mammalian brain network dynamics and computation - Nature Neuroscience
Brain network architecture may balance cooperation and competition across circuits. Here the authors use computational whole-brain modeling across three species to show that models with competition ar...
nature.com
Final version of this paper with Richard Watson is out! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... "Machines all the way up and cognition all the way down: Updating the machine metaphor in biology" (quite a bit different than the original preprint at osf.io/preprints/os...).
Machines all the way up and cognition all the way down: Updating the machine metaphor in biology
Cell and developmental biology (CDB) offer numerous remarkable examples of collective adaptive plasticity, as cells coordinate to implement large-scal…
sciencedirect.com
Happy to announce this new preprint! In it, we use info decomp (ΦID) on fMRI in Alzheimer's and MCI to explore how info-dynamic representations change. AD saw big decreases in synergy ('deductive' information) and increases in redundancy. Check it out here: 👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Hot take 🔥 Why math classes work well in uni? Not because that specific math will be useful later, but because solving hard problems makes you build instrumental skills, which enable you to solve other problems later in life … and that is exactly why next token prediction works so well
Indeed, rather than fight against it, it seems life surfs on entropy 🏄
Sean Carroll@seanmcarroll.bsky.social · 7mo agoNoise is key to evolution; entropy is key to metabolism. We have to stop pretending that biology fights against these things rather than relying on them!
Tomorrow in Amsterdam I’ll be giving a talk about my most recent work on abstractions and world modelling 👇🏽👇🏽
Dutch Institute for Emergent Phenomena@emergencediep.bsky.social · 7mo agoDIEP seminar tomorrow 11am! 🪞 Join us to attend a talk by @frosas.bsky.social (lecturer at the University of Sussex) titled “Mirroring the world: How symmetry shapes hierarchical beliefs” 🤼 Abstract & registration: ias.uva.nl/content/even... See you there!
DIEP seminar tomorrow 11am! 🪞 Join us to attend a talk by @frosas.bsky.social (lecturer at the University of Sussex) titled “Mirroring the world: How symmetry shapes hierarchical beliefs” 🤼 Abstract & registration: ias.uva.nl/content/even... See you there!
Mirroring the world: How symmetry shapes hierarchical beliefs - Institute for Advanced Study IAS
In this edition of the DIEP seminar series, Dr. Fernando Rosas, lecturer in Computer Science and AI at the University of Sussex and Honorary Research Fellow Imperial College London will be talking ab...
ias.uva.nl
Why don’t neural networks learn all at once, but instead progress from simple to complex solutions? And what does “simple” even mean across different neural network architectures? Sharing our new paper @iclr_conf led by Yedi Zhang with Peter Latham arxiv.org/abs/2512.20607
There is a new Postdoctoral Research Associate position available in my group, to work on computational analysis of human neuroimaging workflows to develop robust, interpretable and scalable biomarkers of cognitive brain health. Closing date 10th Feb 2026. www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-...
Description
Please note that job descriptions are not exhaustive, and you may be asked to take on additional duties that align with the key responsibilities ment...
imperial.ac.uk