new preprint: "The Humorous Hill: A U-shaped Relationship Between Humor and Quality" (by Bhattacharya, Hu, and me) link: doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Can an AI tell its own words from yours? This is "reality monitoring." In humans, failing at it is linked to hallucinations and delusions. In this work we investigated reality monitoring in 6 LLMs of different sizes in collaboration with @lazyneuron.bsky.social and @brianodegaard.bsky.social.

well on time for my bi-yearly post I'm sharing the final version of this very cool work we started with @cjungerius.bsky.social @smfleming.bsky.social @svangaal.bsky.social @fahrenfort.bsky.social in 2021, when I was young and full of hope. Now out in @natcomms.nature.com 1/11

The act of detecting a stimulus contaminates measures of conscious experience with decision biases - Nature Communications

A central challenge in consciousness research is determining whether people truly experience a stimulus. Here, the authors show that context biases traditional detection measures, whereas continuous r...

nature.com

New from me and Alan Leslie! We got the band back together to lay out our view on object representations in the infant mind: non-discursive indexes that operate within a language of thought, & which get development of a more complex object concept off the ground www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

out today! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Chaz Firestone@chazfirestone.bsky.social · last mo.

You press ‘send’ on a high-stakes email but hesitate when lifting your finger. You make a chess move but linger on the piece before letting go. Familiar? In @pnas.org, Hanbei Zhou @ruizhegoh.bsky.social @ianbphillips.bsky.social & I show that response *duration* tracks confidence! shorturl.at/A9NVe

Now officially published: our paper "Sensory horizons and the functions of conscious vision" w/ @smfleming.bsky.social, with the commentaries, and our response: Article: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... Commentaries: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... Response: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

IMO: @anilseth.bsky.social is still [1] making his case by: arguing that arguments for AI consciousness are far from conclusive (yes), pointing out that brains are different from computers (yes), and then concluding from this that AI cannot be conscious (doesn't follow?). Also ...

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 3w ago

Once again we are told AI may be conscious – I study consciousness, and I have my doubts | Anil Seth

Strong endorsement from @keithfrankish.com for House of Mirrors!

Keith Frankish@keithfrankish.com · 3w ago

Download this book (it's open access) and read it now! It is a detailed and rigorous presentation of an illusionist theory of consciousness, and in my opinion it is one of the most important books about consciousness ever written. Congratulations, @lovingautomaton.bsky.social!

It’s not a metaphor.

Simon Fisher@profsimonfisher.bsky.social · 3w ago

“Somewhere along the way, we've forgotten the computer is just a metaphor for the brain. A powerful metaphor but still a metaphor. We always get into trouble when we confuse a metaphor with the thing itself – the map with the territory.” Lucid piece by @anilseth.bsky.social on LLMs & consciousness.🧪

osf.io/preprints/ps... Testing Biopsychism: Commentary on Block’s (2025) “Can Only Meat Machines Be Conscious?”

My book on consciousness at Oxford University Press is now available! It is titled House of Mirrors: The Illusion of Phenomenal Consciousness. The (open access) pdf can be downloaded for free on Oxford Academic: academic.oup.com/book/62981 Printed copies should be available at the end of July.

House of Mirrors: The Illusion of Phenomenal Consciousness

Abstract. This book provides a defense and an exploration of illusionism regarding phenomenal consciousness. Phenomenal consciousness supposedly encompasse

academic.oup.com

My reply to @liadmudrik.bsky.social et al.'s proposal that we should reengineer @neddo.bsky.social's famous phenomenal/access distinction.

Trends in Cognitive Sciences@cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social · 4w ago

Online Now: In defense of a distinction

Online Now: In defense of a distinction

Totally agree with Ian Phillips here too.

hakwan lau@hakwan.bsky.social · 4w ago

i have often disagreed w/ both Ian Philips & Ned Block. & of coz, Ian has famously debated w/ Ned on various issues too. but here i completely agree w/ this piece by Ian defending Ned. reasonable voices are growing rare these days in this field.

Our paper "Neural timescales from a computational perspective" is finally out in @natneuro.nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41... We discuss how computational models and methods can distill empirical observations on neural timescales into quantitative, testable theories of brain computation.

Neural timescales from a computational perspective - Nature Neuroscience

This review integrates computational approaches to provide a unified view on how data analysis methods, biophysical mechanistic models and machine learning approaches can help to uncover the origins a...

nature.com

1/11 New preprint! Can we register eye contact before we consciously see gaze direction? We flashed faces for just 1–5 ms and found that direct gaze facilitates face detection before explicit gaze awareness. 🧵 doi.org/10.64898/202... Work with: @axc.bsky.social & @arvidguterstam.bsky.social

Conscious and unconscious eye contact at the limits of vision

Eye contact is one of the most potent social signals, but it remains unclear how little visual input is sufficient to register direct gaze, and whether such registration requires conscious awareness. ...

doi.org

This is why thinking about the enabling conditions of consciousness matters so much (as opposed to just focusing on what theories of consciousness say). See here: philarchive.org/rec/MICOCA-3

Stanislas Dehaene@standehaene.bsky.social · 4w ago

The global neuronal workspace (GNW) is currently the best documented neuroscience mechanism by which conscious processing arises in the human brain — and now Anthropic researchers have discovered a similar workspace inside their large language model ! www.anthropic.com/research/glo...

I’m very proud that our symposium on #Aphantasia and Consciousness at #ASSC29 was a big success! Aphantasia research has undergone a decade of scientific study. This symposium aimed to address a key question: what does aphantasia reveal about unique aspects of human consciousness?

Now out (for realz) in Cognition: "People Make Graded Judgments About The Inconceivable" (by Hu, Sosa, & me) Free preprint: www.tomerullman.org/papers/grade... Journal link: bit.ly/gradedInconCog @jennhu.bsky.social @cognitionjournal.bsky.social

In their recent BBS article (doi.org/10.1017/S014...), Steve Fleming (@smfleming.bsky.social) and Matthias Michel (@matthiasmichel.bsky.social) discuss the slowness of conscious vision and the predictions generated by an internal model of the world. 1/2

new paper coming out in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: How Seriously Should We Take AI Welfare? Constraints from the Epistemology of Consciousness philpapers.org/rec/LENHSS

The whole (absolutely massive) debate thread can be found here for those with access. Must be about 60K words in total. As attention spans are dwindling, BBS is going BIG! bsky.app/profile/smfl...

Steve Fleming@smfleming.bsky.social · last mo.

Lovely to see the full range of excellent commentaries on our BBS article with @matthiasmichel.bsky.social, together with our response, now out: Target article: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... Commentaries: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... Our response: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Did the evolution of consciousness begin with smell? I have a piece arguing it might well have done (in response to @smfleming.bsky.social and @matthiasmichel.bsky.social's recent vision-centric picture). Free to read here: drive.google.com/file/d/1ZhrI...

Lovely to see the full range of excellent commentaries on our BBS article with @matthiasmichel.bsky.social, together with our response, now out: Target article: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... Commentaries: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... Our response: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Matthias Michel@matthiasmichel.bsky.social · last yr.

Very happy to announce that our paper “Sensory Horizons and the Functions of Conscious Vision” is now out as a target article in BBS!! @smfleming.bsky.social and I present a new theory of the evolution and functions of visual consciousness. Article here: doi.org/10.1017/S014.... A (long) thread 🧵

New paper draft: On Cheap Artificial Consciousness. When investigating AI consciousness, it's natural to look at what theories of consciousness tell us. Problem: you can build simple systems that meet their conditions. So, what should we say? A thread. (Paper in the last post)

On cheap artificial consciousness: important message from @matthiasmichel.bsky.social articulating common misreadings of functionalism, and why the problem of artificial C requires tackling broader questions in philosophy of mind, not just theories of C philpapers.org/rec/MICOCA-3

from @matthiasmichel.bsky.social - important antidote to the "LLMs are conscious" hype

A new paper, forthcoming in PPR: Visual Icons This paper took me more than 5 years to write. It argues that the visual system constructs imagistic representations ("visual icons") and sketches a theory of how visual icons, and iconic representations generally, are compositionally structured.

How do other animals experience time? It's been a pleasure to work with @singhal.bsky.social and @anilseth.bsky.social on a paper exploring how temporal illusions and other experimental strategies can shed light on this. It's our today! www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

New paper draft: On Cheap Artificial Consciousness. When investigating AI consciousness, it's natural to look at what theories of consciousness tell us. Problem: you can build simple systems that meet their conditions. So, what should we say? A thread. (Paper in the last post)