BI 079 Romain Brette: The Coding Brain Metaphor

07/27/20 • 79 min

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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.

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.

Previous Episode

BI 078 David and John Krakauer: Part 2

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.

Next Episode

BI 080 Daeyeol Lee: Birth of Intelligence

Daeyeol and I discuss his book Birth of Intelligence: From RNA to Artificial Intelligence, which argues intelligence is a function of and inseparable from life, bound by self-replication and evolution. The book covers a ton of neuroscience related to decision making and learning, though we focused on a few theoretical frameworks and ideas like division of labor and principal-agent relationships to understand how our brains and minds are related to our genes, how AI is related to humans (for now), metacognition, consciousness, and a ton more.