@axoaxonic@synapse.cafe
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axoaxonic

@axoaxonic@synapse.cafe

Studying mathematical/theoretical/computational neuroscience & data science in dᶻidᶻəlal̓ič (Seattle) -- more interested in studying nervous systems through abstraction than studying neurons to improve artificial systems

⚧ ND (ASD/mTBIs/cPTSD/ET/probably more letters) ⬛

Long time musician, now slowly inching my way thru academia as first in my close family to do so. Grew up unschooled, which gave me a heavy autodidactism habit

CW: Posts about disease, links to research involving animals

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MolemanPeter, to random
@MolemanPeter@neuromatch.social avatar

... no amount of investigation of another person’ s neural processes by means of fMRI will allow us to inspect his reasoning or what he is thinking.

Bennett, M. R.; Hacker, P. M. S.. Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (p. 107). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

axoaxonic,
@axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

@NicoleCRust @beneuroscience Before I knew about Juarrero's impending book I was looking for any models of contextuality in nervous system activity, but ran into the problem that most formalisms of contextuality are from quantum physics. All I could find last year was this sketch by William Sulis that models emergent collective swarm intelligence of ant colonies (which have been called "liquid brains" by others) using Process Algebra, a formalization of Whitehead's Process Theory
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Contextuality-in-Neurobehavioural-and-Collective-Sulis/118c12819fd0a3e6e51003e4e5e9f15ef677f1a6
Though it's more an extension of quantum contextuality into the realm of classical physics, pasted onto swarm intelligence then connected to brains.

I still want to read "Context Changes Everything", but maybe one reason why it lacks a good model is that there aren't any yet

axoaxonic,
@axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

@NicoleCRust @beneuroscience "[Contextuality] arises where there is a family of data which is locally consistent, but globally inconsistent. ...this sounds exactly like sheaf theory" - Samson Abramsky, "The logic of contextuality" talk at the Topos Institute Colloquium 2021. This corresponds to Juarrero's description of context dependence at around 24 mins of the Brain Inspired podcast.

axoaxonic,
@axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

@NicoleCRust @beneuroscience I wish I could find or construct one. Sheaf theory is really complicated and requires a lot of algebraic topology background, so it doesn't seem to lend to a simple toy model. Abramsky's heuristic definition leads me to want to read Mainzer and Chua's book "Local Activity Principle: The Cause of Complexity and Symmetry Breaking" https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/p882#t=aboutBook next, it seems like a better framework for a simpler model, but it's also 456 pages... Complex systems research is itself frustratingly complex

axoaxonic, to random
@axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

Me: money's really tight, it's hard to afford basic necessities in this really high cost of living city

Also me: maybe I'll buy myself an open source fNIRS system https://openfnirs.org/hardware/

axoaxonic,
@axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

An aspect of neurotech that's appealing to me is using it for AAC (Augmented and Alternative Communication) because I am having an increasingly harder time typing, texting, and using a pen and I've always had speech-language difficulties and don't like using spoken language but can if I have to.

axoaxonic,
@axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

@teixi Every time I see "get quote" on something I want to buy, I assume it's going have a fairly hefty price tag. It probably would work better than me trying to put together a bunch of open source components though

axoaxonic, to random
@axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

I have no idea how to reconcile neural network models with the observed phenomena of representational drift and degeneracy. New models from scratch might be better, even tho the former type have been worked on for around like 80 years, but maybe there's a way

axoaxonic, to scifi
@axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

Just found this list of neuroscience themes in literature https://dynamicsubspace.net/research/neuroscience-and-science-fiction-literature/

axoaxonic,
@axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

@NicoleCRust Fall is a great time for fiction~
It's cool to see how the themes over the years sort of reflects what was happening in neuro research at the time

tdverstynen, to music
@tdverstynen@neuromatch.social avatar

Whenever I need to get out of a mental rut I turn to this gem from Florence and the Machine to cheer me up.

https://youtu.be/vDHr85LiwUM?si=PZfSfY4wQ_AVkR0a

Now I am curious, what songs cheer you up?

axoaxonic,
@axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

@jonny @tdverstynen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBhWKDG9eKc

ttpphd, to Youtube
@ttpphd@mastodon.social avatar

Homeschooling: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzsZP9o7SlI

axoaxonic,
@axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

@ttpphd Very real. My experience was mostly positive, but I knew a lot of kids growing up who were straight up being sheltered from the world and indoctrinated. In Washington though, we were required to have our academic progress assessed every year

axoaxonic, to random
@axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

Today people are talking about attractor dynamics in brains, making me remember this paper "Repeller Neural Networks" https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.48.4091 and wondering if repellers (the opposite of attractors) can be applied to study decisions as well. Neurally activity falls into attractors of choices we make, so it might be driven away from repellers of unchosen options

ryanhoulihan, to random
@ryanhoulihan@mastodon.social avatar

deleted_by_author

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    axoaxonic,
    @axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

    @ryanhoulihan I've been doing weekly electrolysis for about a year and it's like almost nothing has changed. I've been trying to cope by remembering rad bearded ladies and the beautiful hairy enbies of the world, wanting read this https://nyupress.org/9781479840823/plucked/ soon, but the feeling of inaccessibility is also depressing. Looking into laser again now, but thanks for prepping me for a continued long road

    axoaxonic, to random
    @axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

    rTMS, and tDCS have been shown to have little to no effect on executive dysfunction

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763421000282

    https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2018.00298/full

    What does then? It really reduces my quality of life, but all I see for treatment options is like, use planners and colored pencils to take notes..

    NicoleCRust, to random
    @NicoleCRust@neuromatch.social avatar

    How do you stay connected with curiosity and awe?

    I suspect most researchers experience ups and downs. I periodically find myself disconnected from curiosity and awe and I need to find that compass again. (Writing a book like I’m doing now is arguably an overindulgence there).

    I worry that researchers are globally a bit disconnected from it, coming out of the pandemic coupled with increasing pressures to produce.

    One impression I have is that the special swath of researchers who inhabit this furry elephant are particularly in touch with curiosity and awe.

    How do y’all stay connected to it?

    axoaxonic,
    @axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

    @NicoleCRust Maintaining my connection to curiousity, wonder, and awe saved my life. I have to keep them close to my heart, and feel like I can access them if I just remember that they're there

    axoaxonic, to random
    @axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

    Cognition like inner speech and motor imagery can be seen as a , like Hesslow (2002, 2012) has shown, or as a hallucination/illusion as they reactivate sensorimotor networks but don't correspond one-to-one to direct stimuli from physical reality. That doesn't mean all of perception fits into illusion metaphors: the fidelity of sensory neurons is pretty faithful to the physical qualities they transduce, even if upsampled, mixed together, and modulated downstream.

    If this distinction was public knowledge, maybe there would be less people thinking nihilistically that nothing is real and therefore meaningless. Instead ideas that the reality we experience is all a hallucination gets sensationalized in news stories and TED talks

    BlackAzizAnansi, to random
    @BlackAzizAnansi@mas.to avatar

    Are there any legal organizations that exist for the purpose of data privacy advocacy?

    axoaxonic,
    @axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

    @BlackAzizAnansi I imagine someone at EFF @eff would be able to answer this

    axoaxonic, to random
    @axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

    Is it possible to include a function in TeX that randomly shuffles the order of author names on a paper every time it's rendered as a PDF?

    axoaxonic, to random
    @axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

    If someone uses ableist language in their writing, even blog posts, I'm probably not going to give any of my time and energy to entertaining their ideas

    annaleen, to random
    @annaleen@wandering.shop avatar

    I woke up this morning with an irrational feeling of panic and dread. What was wrong? Was I just randomly depressed? I opened a window to breathe deeply, and the air smelled like burned rubber. Checked the AQI, and we're in the danger zone, around 150. Wildfires to the north. The burning season has started again.

    axoaxonic,
    @axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

    @NicoleCRust @aaronbornstein @annaleen CO2 has been used a panicogen https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.31887/DCNS.2011.13.4/jwemmie , to experimentally induced panic at levels from %5 to %35 , even in people with damaged amygdala https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.3323
    I wonder how what percentage of CO2 wildfire smoke adds to the air at that AQI level

    axoaxonic,
    @axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

    @NicoleCRust @aaronbornstein @annaleen Serial-replying, sorry, but I'm looking into it more.

    AQI includes carbon monoxide, but not carbon dioxide https://scijinks.gov/air-quality/
    Wildfires definitely release both https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/19/8523/2019/

    NicoleCRust, to random
    @NicoleCRust@neuromatch.social avatar

    Elaboration of "leading theory of consciousness is pseudoscience"
    from the perspective of one (of 124) authors, Hakwan Lau
    https://psyarxiv.com/28z3y

    (For the 124 author post, see this from yesterday: https://neuromatch.social/@NicoleCRust/111074417017972359)

    Among many highlights from Lau's piece:

    Defines pseudoscience as

    i) a set of important claims with far-reaching implications that are ii) neither currently supported by science nor are they likely to be so in the foreseeable future (perhaps even in principle), and yet they iii) masquerade as being already scientifically tested and established.

    Explains why IIT is a problem as:

    "Flat earth theory is clearly wrong but we don’t see articles appearing in Science11–13, Nature14, The New York Times15,16, The Economist17, NewScientist18,19, etc, repeatedly, over many years, sometimes by authoritative figures, proclaiming that it is a leading, empirically tested, and well established scientific theory. Therefore, flat earth theory is, in a sense, more ‘harmless’ and less threatening than the rise of IIT and panpsychism in the media."

    Explains why IIT is pseudoscience as:

    IIT shares many common features with other pseudoscientific ideas: that it is unresponsive to empirical challenges4–7; that it uses an unnecessarily complex and impractical4 language that diverges from mainstream science; that its popularity is mainly driven by the opinions by a few authoritative figures, and populist appeal8,23, rather than consensus within the scientific community or empirical success, etc. It is also notable that proponents of IIT publicly engage with religious leaders on the very topic of panpsychism24 and related metaphysical matters, and openly profess the ‘spiritual dimension’ of their ‘science’, together with controversial figures like Sadhguru25 and the New Age alternative medicine advocate Deepak Chopra26.

    Also explains the events leading up to the letter and much more (for that, have a read).

    Really curious to hear thoughts!
    @WorldImagining, @axoaxonic +++

    axoaxonic,
    @axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

    @NicoleCRust @WorldImagining From reading that quote, I'm curious about how IIT's media representation is centered in the argument and not how IIT is being considered as one of the few legitimate theories of consciousness by academic institutions, like the Oxford Mathematics of Consciousness and Applications Network https://omcan.web.ox.ac.uk/ see the graph on their homepage. News stories promote unproven [pseudo]science and misinfo all the time. I suppose it signals what's being normalized in the public sphere, but not what's defining research programmes and who gets funding

    axoaxonic,
    @axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

    @mrcompletely @WorldImagining @NicoleCRust Yeah I guess it's similar to the "don't feed the trolls" idea. Definitely don't want want to inadvertently give them extra legitimacy. I mostly meant don't be afraid to read anything, especially critically and in the original sense of the word "skeptic" -- "to consider," and to not to disregard critical engagement with those ideas when they happen, even if it's wiser to leave those ideas alone

    axoaxonic,
    @axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

    @mrcompletely @WorldImagining @NicoleCRust Same. There's a reason those types of experiences have been the subject of speculation and debate in almost every culuture for all of human history. I'm very critical of anyone who offers "answers" on spiritual subjects, especially if they come with a price tag

    axoaxonic,
    @axoaxonic@synapse.cafe avatar

    @NicoleCRust @WorldImagining I found some time to read the whole Hakwan Lau essay, but the notes I typed up during ended up being over 2,000 words. I guess I'm now especially motivated to set up my blog

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