Brain Inspired
Paul Middlebrooks
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Top 10 Brain Inspired Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Brain Inspired episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Brain Inspired for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Brain Inspired episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
BI 171 Mike Frank: Early Language and Cognition
Brain Inspired
07/22/23 • 84 min
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My guest is Michael C. Frank, better known as Mike Frank, who runs the Language and Cognition lab at Stanford. Mike's main interests center on how children learn language - in particular he focuses a lot on early word learning, and what that tells us about our other cognitive functions, like concept formation and social cognition.
We discuss that, his love for developing open data sets that anyone can use,
The dance he dances between bottom-up data-driven approaches in this big data era, traditional experimental approaches, and top-down theory-driven approaches
How early language learning in children differs from LLM learning
Mike's rational speech act model of language use, which considers the intentions or pragmatics of speakers and listeners in dialogue.
- Language & Cognition Lab
- Twitter: @mcxfrank.
- I mentioned Mike's tweet thread about saying LLMs "have" cognitive functions:
- Related papers:
- Pragmatic language interpretation as probabilistic inference.
- Toward a “Standard Model” of Early Language Learning.
- The pervasive role of pragmatics in early language.
- The Structure of Developmental Variation in Early Childhood.
- Relational reasoning and generalization using non-symbolic neural networks.
- Unsupervised neural network models of the ventral visual stream.
1 Listener
BI 076 Olaf Sporns: Network Neuroscience
Brain Inspired
07/04/20 • 105 min
Olaf and I discuss the explosion of network neuroscience, which uses network science tools to map the structure (connectome) and activity of the brain at various spatial and temporal scales. We talk about the possibility of bridging physical and functional connectivity via communication dynamics, and about the relation between network science and artificial neural networks and plenty more.
Notes:
1 Listener
BI 074 Ginger Campbell: Are You Sure?
Brain Inspired
06/16/20 • 82 min
Ginger and I discuss her book Are You Sure? The Unconscious Origins of Certainty, which summarizes Richard Burton's work exploring the experience and phenomenal origin of feeling confident, and how the vast majority of our brain processing occurs outside our conscious awareness.
1 Listener
BI 073 Megan Peters: Consciousness and Metacognition
Brain Inspired
06/10/20 • 85 min
Megan and I discuss her work using metacognition as a way to study subjective awareness, or confidence. We talk about using computational and neural network models to probe how decisions are related to our confidence, the current state of the science of consciousness, and her newest project using fMRI decoded neurofeedback to induce particular brain states in subjects so we can learn about conscious and unconscious brain processing.
Notes:
- Visit Megan's cognitive & neural computation lab.
- Twitter: @meganakpeters
- The papers we discuss or mention:
1 Listener
BI 079 Romain Brette: The Coding Brain Metaphor
Brain Inspired
07/27/20 • 79 min
Romain and I discuss his theoretical/philosophical work examining how neuroscientists rampantly misuse the word "code" when making claims about information processing in brains. We talk about the coding metaphor, various notions of information, the different roles and facets of mental representation, perceptual invariance, subjective physics, process versus substance metaphysics, and the experience of writing a Behavior and Brain Sciences article (spoiler: it's a demanding yet rewarding experience).
- Romain's website.
- Twitter: @RomainBrette.
- The papers we discuss or mention:.
- Related works
- The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception by James Gibson.
- Why Red Doesn't Sound Like a Bell by Kevin O’Reagan.
1 Listener
BI 078 David and John Krakauer: Part 2
Brain Inspired
07/17/20 • 74 min
In this second part of our conversation David, John, and I continue to discuss the role of complexity science in the study of intelligence, brains, and minds. We also get into functionalism and multiple realizability, dynamical systems explanations, the role of time in thinking, and more. Be sure to listen to the first part, which lays the foundation for what we discuss in this episode.
Notes:
- David’s page at the Santa Fe Institute.
- John’s BLAM lab website.
- Follow SFI on twitter: @sfiscience.
- BLAM on Twitter: @blamlab
- Related Krakauer stuff:
- At the limits of thought. An Aeon article by David
- Complex Time: Cognitive Regime Shift II - When/Why/How the Brain Breaks. A video conversation with both John and David.
- Complexity Podcast.
- Books mentioned:
- Worlds Hidden in Plain Sight: The Evolving Idea of Complexity at the Santa Fe Institute, ed. David Krakauer.
- Understanding Scientific Understanding by Henk de Regt.
- The Idea of the Brain by Matthew Cobb.
- New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future by James Bridle.
- The River of Consciousness by Oliver Sacks.
1 Listener
BI 077 David and John Krakauer: Part 1
Brain Inspired
07/14/20 • 93 min
David, John, and I discuss the role of complexity science in the study of intelligence. In this first part, we talk about complexity itself, its role in neuroscience, emergence and levels of explanation, understanding, epistemology and ontology, and really quite a bit more.
Notes:
- David’s page at the Santa Fe Institute.
- John’s BLAM lab website.
- Follow SFI on twitter: @sfiscience.
- BLAM on Twitter: @blamlab
- Related Krakauer stuff:
- At the limits of thought. An Aeon article by David
- Complex Time: Cognitive Regime Shift II - When/Why/How the Brain Breaks. A video conversation with both John and David.
- Complexity Podcast.
- Books mentioned:
- Worlds Hidden in Plain Sight: The Evolving Idea of Complexity at the Santa Fe Institute, ed. David Krakauer.
- Understanding Scientific Understanding by Henk de Regt.
- The Idea of the Brain by Matthew Cobb.
- New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future by James Bridle.
- The River of Consciousness by Oliver Sacks.
1 Listener
BI 070 Bradley Love: How We Learn Concepts
Brain Inspired
05/15/20 • 107 min
Brad and I discuss his battle-tested, age-defying cognitive model for how we learn and store concepts by forming and rearranging clusters, how the model maps onto brain areas, and how he's using deep learning models to explore how attention and sensory information interact with concept formation. We also discuss the cognitive modeling approach, Marr's levels of analysis, the term "biological plausibility", emergence and reduction, and plenty more.
Notes:
- Visit Brad’s website.
- Follow Brad on twitter: @ProfData.
- Related papers:
- Levels of Biological Plausibility.
- Models in search of a brain.
- A non-spatial account of place and grid cells based on clustering models of concept learning.
- Abstract neural representations of category membership beyond information coding stimulus or response.
- Ventromedial prefrontal cortex compression during concept learning.
- The Costs and Benefits of Goal-Directed Attention in Deep Convolutional Neural Networks
- Learning as the unsupervised alignment of conceptual systems.
BI 071 J. Patrick Mayo: The Path To Faculty
Brain Inspired
05/25/20 • 70 min
Patrick and I mostly discuss his path from a technician in the then nascent Jim DiCarlo lab, through his graduate school and two postdoc experiences, and finally landing a faculty position, plus the culture and issues in academia in general. We also cover plenty of science, like the role of eye movements in the study of vision, the neuroscience (and concept) of attention, what Patrick thinks of the deep learning hype, and more.
But, this is a special episode, less about the science and more about the experience of an academic neuroscience trajectory/life. Episodes like this will appear in Patreon supporters' private feeds from now on.
Show notes:
- His pre-lab website university page.
- Twitter: @mayo_lab.
- Here’s the paper he recommends to understand attention:
06/01/20 • 78 min
Mazviita and I discuss the growing divide between prediction and understanding as neuroscience models and deep learning networks become bigger and more complex. She describes her non-factive account of understanding, which among other things suggests that the best predictive models may deliver less understanding. We also discuss the brain as a computer metaphor, and whether it's really possible to ignore all the traditionally "non-computational" parts of the brain like metabolism and other life processes.
Show notes:
- Her website.
- Outside color website (with links to more of her publications)
- Her book Outside Color: Perceptual Science and the Puzzle of Color in Philosophy.
- Papers we discuss or mention:
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FAQ
How many episodes does Brain Inspired have?
Brain Inspired currently has 210 episodes available.
What topics does Brain Inspired cover?
The podcast is about Natural Sciences, Podcasts, Technology and Science.
What is the most popular episode on Brain Inspired?
The episode title 'BI 073 Megan Peters: Consciousness and Metacognition' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Brain Inspired?
The average episode length on Brain Inspired is 83 minutes.
How often are episodes of Brain Inspired released?
Episodes of Brain Inspired are typically released every 10 days, 2 hours.
When was the first episode of Brain Inspired?
The first episode of Brain Inspired was released on Aug 2, 2018.
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