Umberto Tilomelli
@tilo67.bsky.social
Graduate in philosophy, fascinated by neuroscience. Old dog trying to learn new tricks. Also a climber
«Come, you who are blessed by my Father, for I was hungry and you gave me food, thirsty and you gave me drink, stranger and you welcomed me»
Mt 25:34-35
«Come, you who are blessed by my Father, for I was hungry and you gave me food, thirsty and you gave me drink, stranger and you welcomed me»
Mt 25:34-35
Reposted by Umberto Tilomelli
Next session of the MIT Consciousness Club this Thursday, 12pm-1:30pm. Marco Tamietto will talk about his work on blindsight. More details here: sites.google.com/view/mit-con...
MIT Consciousness Club
The MIT Consciousness Club aims to foster interdisciplinary research on consciousness at MIT and in the broader Boston area by organizing a monthly event featuring an expert talk on consciousness foll...
sites.google.com
February 16, 2026 at 3:30 PM
Next session of the MIT Consciousness Club this Thursday, 12pm-1:30pm. Marco Tamietto will talk about his work on blindsight. More details here: sites.google.com/view/mit-con...
Reposted by Umberto Tilomelli
"The Self-Evidencing Agent" - my new book - is out now with @mitpress.bsky.social
Can be purchased, or just download the whole thing for free, via the 'Open Access' option.
I'm grateful to @anilseth.bsky.social and Karl Friston for the generous endorsements.
mitpress.mit.edu/978026255389...
Can be purchased, or just download the whole thing for free, via the 'Open Access' option.
I'm grateful to @anilseth.bsky.social and Karl Friston for the generous endorsements.
mitpress.mit.edu/978026255389...
The Self-Evidencing Agent
What is it to be a human individual, an agent? According to Jakob Hohwy, it is to “self-evidence,” to actively seek out sensory evidence for one&...
mitpress.mit.edu
February 7, 2026 at 8:21 AM
"The Self-Evidencing Agent" - my new book - is out now with @mitpress.bsky.social
Can be purchased, or just download the whole thing for free, via the 'Open Access' option.
I'm grateful to @anilseth.bsky.social and Karl Friston for the generous endorsements.
mitpress.mit.edu/978026255389...
Can be purchased, or just download the whole thing for free, via the 'Open Access' option.
I'm grateful to @anilseth.bsky.social and Karl Friston for the generous endorsements.
mitpress.mit.edu/978026255389...
Reposted by Umberto Tilomelli
"Recent events have brought Trump’s governing style into sharper focus," Jonathan Rauch argues. "'Fascist' best describes it, and reluctance to use the term has now become perverse." theatln.tc/xr56xSUj
January 26, 2026 at 10:50 PM
"Recent events have brought Trump’s governing style into sharper focus," Jonathan Rauch argues. "'Fascist' best describes it, and reluctance to use the term has now become perverse." theatln.tc/xr56xSUj
Reposted by Umberto Tilomelli
We are seeing incredible acts of solidarity today in Minnesota and across the country.
The next days and months and years will require this from us — and demand our courage. Be prepared.
The next days and months and years will require this from us — and demand our courage. Be prepared.
January 23, 2026 at 9:32 PM
We are seeing incredible acts of solidarity today in Minnesota and across the country.
The next days and months and years will require this from us — and demand our courage. Be prepared.
The next days and months and years will require this from us — and demand our courage. Be prepared.
Reposted by Umberto Tilomelli
In any functioning government, this man would be impeached, convicted, and removed from office by close of business today.
Trump links Greenland dispute to not getting Nobel Peace Prize, in letter to Norway's PM - BBC News
The US president says he no longer feels obliged to think only of peace, after not being awarded the annual prize.
www.bbc.com
January 19, 2026 at 2:20 PM
In any functioning government, this man would be impeached, convicted, and removed from office by close of business today.
“Perhaps it is life, rather than information processing, that breathes fire into the equations of experience.”
“Time is short, but collectively we can still decide which kinds of AI we really want and which we really don’t.”
The Mythology Of Conscious AI
By @anilseth.bsky.social
“Time is short, but collectively we can still decide which kinds of AI we really want and which we really don’t.”
The Mythology Of Conscious AI
By @anilseth.bsky.social
“If we conflate the richness of biological brains & human experience with the information-processing machinations of deepfake-boosted chatbots, or whatever the latest AI wizardry is, we do our minds, brains & bodies a grave injustice.”
— @anilseth.bsky.social, winner of @berggruen.org Essay Prize
— @anilseth.bsky.social, winner of @berggruen.org Essay Prize
The Mythology Of Conscious AI | NOEMA
Why consciousness is more likely a property of life than of computation and why creating conscious, or even conscious-seeming AI, is a bad idea.
www.noemamag.com
January 15, 2026 at 6:38 AM
“Perhaps it is life, rather than information processing, that breathes fire into the equations of experience.”
“Time is short, but collectively we can still decide which kinds of AI we really want and which we really don’t.”
The Mythology Of Conscious AI
By @anilseth.bsky.social
“Time is short, but collectively we can still decide which kinds of AI we really want and which we really don’t.”
The Mythology Of Conscious AI
By @anilseth.bsky.social
Reposted by Umberto Tilomelli
Reposted by Umberto Tilomelli
Crackdown.
My @smh @theage cartoon.
My @smh @theage cartoon.
January 8, 2026 at 11:07 PM
Crackdown.
My @smh @theage cartoon.
My @smh @theage cartoon.
Reposted by Umberto Tilomelli
Please support Michael de Adder, who does great work:
January 8, 2026 at 5:05 PM
Please support Michael de Adder, who does great work:
Reposted by Umberto Tilomelli
The White House wastes no time gaslighting the American people
anntelnaes.substack.com/p/ice-shoots...
anntelnaes.substack.com/p/ice-shoots...
January 8, 2026 at 9:25 PM
The White House wastes no time gaslighting the American people
anntelnaes.substack.com/p/ice-shoots...
anntelnaes.substack.com/p/ice-shoots...
Reposted by Umberto Tilomelli
Funny thing though: Musk and the other tech lords are still saying such things, and the media credulity has not lessened one whit. And they are richer than ever.
December 27, 2025 at 10:44 AM
Funny thing though: Musk and the other tech lords are still saying such things, and the media credulity has not lessened one whit. And they are richer than ever.
prompting an LLM with “Who was the 1st person to walk on the Moon?”, we're not reasoning about Moon landing. In reality, we are asking: given the statistical distribution of words in its training data, what is the most likely continuation of the prompt “The first person to walk on the Moon was...”?
New article with Jessica Morley, Claudio Novelli, and David Watson on
"What Kind of Reasoning (if any) is an LLM actually doing? On the Stochastic Nature and Abductive Appearance of Large Language Models"
OA: papers.ssrn.com/sol3...
"What Kind of Reasoning (if any) is an LLM actually doing? On the Stochastic Nature and Abductive Appearance of Large Language Models"
OA: papers.ssrn.com/sol3...
December 11, 2025 at 1:40 PM
prompting an LLM with “Who was the 1st person to walk on the Moon?”, we're not reasoning about Moon landing. In reality, we are asking: given the statistical distribution of words in its training data, what is the most likely continuation of the prompt “The first person to walk on the Moon was...”?
Reposted by Umberto Tilomelli
New article with Jessica Morley, Claudio Novelli, and David Watson on
"What Kind of Reasoning (if any) is an LLM actually doing? On the Stochastic Nature and Abductive Appearance of Large Language Models"
OA: papers.ssrn.com/sol3...
"What Kind of Reasoning (if any) is an LLM actually doing? On the Stochastic Nature and Abductive Appearance of Large Language Models"
OA: papers.ssrn.com/sol3...
December 10, 2025 at 8:04 PM
New article with Jessica Morley, Claudio Novelli, and David Watson on
"What Kind of Reasoning (if any) is an LLM actually doing? On the Stochastic Nature and Abductive Appearance of Large Language Models"
OA: papers.ssrn.com/sol3...
"What Kind of Reasoning (if any) is an LLM actually doing? On the Stochastic Nature and Abductive Appearance of Large Language Models"
OA: papers.ssrn.com/sol3...
Reposted by Umberto Tilomelli
Do you need your toes to think?
YESS!
Happy to see this one out 😎!
From your humble toes to your noble neurons, you need all your cells to solve your most important problem :
How to stay alive 😎😅
YESS!
Happy to see this one out 😎!
From your humble toes to your noble neurons, you need all your cells to solve your most important problem :
How to stay alive 😎😅
What if thinking doesn’t begin in the brain, but in the ceaseless labour of our cells? Today’s essay rethinks the question of how we become minds, arguing that cognition begins not in the mind but in the collective processes that keep a body alive @annaciaunica.bsky.social
Why you need your whole body – from head to toes – to think | Aeon Essays
Contemplating the world requires a body, and a body requires an immune system: the rungs of life create the stuff of thought
buff.ly
November 27, 2025 at 11:04 AM
Do you need your toes to think?
YESS!
Happy to see this one out 😎!
From your humble toes to your noble neurons, you need all your cells to solve your most important problem :
How to stay alive 😎😅
YESS!
Happy to see this one out 😎!
From your humble toes to your noble neurons, you need all your cells to solve your most important problem :
How to stay alive 😎😅
Reposted by Umberto Tilomelli
and all of the arguments we made 5 yrs ago in this paper about why the idea of robot rights relies on faulty assumptions about the nature of human cognition and intelligence still hold
Robot Rights?: Let's Talk about Human Welfare Instead dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1...
Robot Rights?: Let's Talk about Human Welfare Instead dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1...
November 25, 2025 at 10:54 PM
and all of the arguments we made 5 yrs ago in this paper about why the idea of robot rights relies on faulty assumptions about the nature of human cognition and intelligence still hold
Robot Rights?: Let's Talk about Human Welfare Instead dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1...
Robot Rights?: Let's Talk about Human Welfare Instead dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1...
Reposted by Umberto Tilomelli
By studying the process through which a soil bacterium naturally produces a well-known drug, scientists have discovered a powerful antibiotic that could help to fight drug-resistant infections
go.nature.com/4nLbCoC
go.nature.com/4nLbCoC
Powerful new antibiotic that can kill superbugs discovered in soil bacteria
Nature - Surprise discovery could pave the way for new treatments against drug-resistant infections.
go.nature.com
November 8, 2025 at 3:43 PM
By studying the process through which a soil bacterium naturally produces a well-known drug, scientists have discovered a powerful antibiotic that could help to fight drug-resistant infections
go.nature.com/4nLbCoC
go.nature.com/4nLbCoC
When autumn cultivates some doubts, results flourish immediately.
November 2, 2025 at 5:05 PM
When autumn cultivates some doubts, results flourish immediately.
humans and technologies are co-constitutive […] Technologies are imbued with human subjectivity and deployed by creative subjects. […]
People may use technologies in innovative and creative ways […]
Affordance: objects afford but do not determine.
How Artifacts Afford, Jenny L. Davis
People may use technologies in innovative and creative ways […]
Affordance: objects afford but do not determine.
How Artifacts Afford, Jenny L. Davis
October 11, 2025 at 12:16 PM
humans and technologies are co-constitutive […] Technologies are imbued with human subjectivity and deployed by creative subjects. […]
People may use technologies in innovative and creative ways […]
Affordance: objects afford but do not determine.
How Artifacts Afford, Jenny L. Davis
People may use technologies in innovative and creative ways […]
Affordance: objects afford but do not determine.
How Artifacts Afford, Jenny L. Davis
Reposted by Umberto Tilomelli
Outside of the US, we're not very confused about this either.
No one would be confused about what is happening here if they saw it in another country.
September 9, 2025 at 9:31 PM
Outside of the US, we're not very confused about this either.
“same/except”: a visual relationship in which forms are clearly similar, yet slightly varied > brain perceives both sameness and difference at once.
The repetition/variation interplay is central to how we perceive structure, rhythm and depth across mediums.
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/why-repetiti...
The repetition/variation interplay is central to how we perceive structure, rhythm and depth across mediums.
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/why-repetiti...
The Pleasure of Patterns in Art
The interplay between repetition and variation is central to how we perceive structure, rhythm, and depth across mediums.
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
August 30, 2025 at 7:21 AM
“same/except”: a visual relationship in which forms are clearly similar, yet slightly varied > brain perceives both sameness and difference at once.
The repetition/variation interplay is central to how we perceive structure, rhythm and depth across mediums.
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/why-repetiti...
The repetition/variation interplay is central to how we perceive structure, rhythm and depth across mediums.
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/why-repetiti...
Reposted by Umberto Tilomelli
“You are here to learn to ride a bicycle, not to invent a bicycle.” 🚲🧪
Read my story in Science Magazine on how I dealt with my "Mid-PhD Crisis".
www.science.org/content/arti...
@science.org
@sciencecareers.bsky.social
#ScienceWorkingLife
#AcademicChatter
#AcademicTwitter
#ScienceTwitter
Read my story in Science Magazine on how I dealt with my "Mid-PhD Crisis".
www.science.org/content/arti...
@science.org
@sciencecareers.bsky.social
#ScienceWorkingLife
#AcademicChatter
#AcademicTwitter
#ScienceTwitter
"For half an hour, I vented everything I had been holding in for months … my supervisor … then calmly offered a line I’ll never forget: 'You are here to learn to ride a bicycle, not to invent a bicycle.' That one sentence landed softly, but it cracked something open." https://scim.ag/4lt1Ru0
August 19, 2025 at 1:45 PM
“You are here to learn to ride a bicycle, not to invent a bicycle.” 🚲🧪
Read my story in Science Magazine on how I dealt with my "Mid-PhD Crisis".
www.science.org/content/arti...
@science.org
@sciencecareers.bsky.social
#ScienceWorkingLife
#AcademicChatter
#AcademicTwitter
#ScienceTwitter
Read my story in Science Magazine on how I dealt with my "Mid-PhD Crisis".
www.science.org/content/arti...
@science.org
@sciencecareers.bsky.social
#ScienceWorkingLife
#AcademicChatter
#AcademicTwitter
#ScienceTwitter
Reposted by Umberto Tilomelli
Neuroscience needs a new paradigm: the brain is not a machine | By Nicole Rust
“The brain is a dynamic complex system—like the weather or a megacity—whose parts interact via feedback loops that are impossible to study in isolation from each other.” iai.tv/articles/neu... #philsky #philsci #neuro
“The brain is a dynamic complex system—like the weather or a megacity—whose parts interact via feedback loops that are impossible to study in isolation from each other.” iai.tv/articles/neu... #philsky #philsci #neuro
Neuroscience needs a new paradigm: the brain is not a machine | Nicole Rust
iai.tv
August 12, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Neuroscience needs a new paradigm: the brain is not a machine | By Nicole Rust
“The brain is a dynamic complex system—like the weather or a megacity—whose parts interact via feedback loops that are impossible to study in isolation from each other.” iai.tv/articles/neu... #philsky #philsci #neuro
“The brain is a dynamic complex system—like the weather or a megacity—whose parts interact via feedback loops that are impossible to study in isolation from each other.” iai.tv/articles/neu... #philsky #philsci #neuro
Reposted by Umberto Tilomelli
I wrote a little bit about a cool recent paper looking at heritability estimates from very large registry data, and how we still really don't understand why outcomes track in families. A short 🧵:
We still do not understand family resemblance
...
theinfinitesimal.substack.com
July 12, 2025 at 2:25 AM
I wrote a little bit about a cool recent paper looking at heritability estimates from very large registry data, and how we still really don't understand why outcomes track in families. A short 🧵: