Anil Seth
@anilseth.bsky.social
Neuroscientist: consciousness, perception, and Dreamachines. Author of Being You - A New Science of Consciousness.
Something for the weekend: Being You is just £1.19 - yes, one pound and nineteen pence - on Amazon Kindle *today only*. Don't miss it: www.amazon.co.uk/Being-You-Co...
January 24, 2026 at 10:14 AM
Something for the weekend: Being You is just £1.19 - yes, one pound and nineteen pence - on Amazon Kindle *today only*. Don't miss it: www.amazon.co.uk/Being-You-Co...
A few newly signed copies of #BeingYou in the Staff Picks section of WHSmith in London Gatwick South Terminal 😎 www.theguardian.com/books/2021/a...
January 21, 2026 at 6:19 PM
A few newly signed copies of #BeingYou in the Staff Picks section of WHSmith in London Gatwick South Terminal 😎 www.theguardian.com/books/2021/a...
4/ The error is even clearer in the wall text: "The blackboard bears the words 'DNA->RNA->protein". Innocent mistake? Well, look who commissioned the portrait. A certain James Watson 🙄
January 21, 2026 at 11:36 AM
4/ The error is even clearer in the wall text: "The blackboard bears the words 'DNA->RNA->protein". Innocent mistake? Well, look who commissioned the portrait. A certain James Watson 🙄
3/ Strikingly, the portrait of Crick commissioned for no lesser place than the Crick Institute continues to push "Watson's Dogma" (as Crick suggested it be known) - as discovered by Crick scientist Katie Bentley. Look at the top, there's no backward arrow from RNA to DNA.
January 21, 2026 at 11:36 AM
3/ Strikingly, the portrait of Crick commissioned for no lesser place than the Crick Institute continues to push "Watson's Dogma" (as Crick suggested it be known) - as discovered by Crick scientist Katie Bentley. Look at the top, there's no backward arrow from RNA to DNA.
2/ Amusing Crick-snippet. Cobb's book makes clear that Crick consistently rejected DNA->RNA->protein 'central dogma' continually pushed by Watson, and let Watson know about it. For Crick, back-translation from RNA->DNA was entirely possible, and indeed happens. Here's a passage from Cobb's book:
January 21, 2026 at 11:36 AM
2/ Amusing Crick-snippet. Cobb's book makes clear that Crick consistently rejected DNA->RNA->protein 'central dogma' continually pushed by Watson, and let Watson know about it. For Crick, back-translation from RNA->DNA was entirely possible, and indeed happens. Here's a passage from Cobb's book:
5/ The essay – along with all the winners, honourable mentions and shortlisted contributions will also appear on @closertotruth.bsky.social loc.closertotruth.com/berggruen-pr... (& here's my videos on @closertotruth.bsky.social closertotruth.com/contributor/...)
January 14, 2026 at 5:47 PM
5/ The essay – along with all the winners, honourable mentions and shortlisted contributions will also appear on @closertotruth.bsky.social loc.closertotruth.com/berggruen-pr... (& here's my videos on @closertotruth.bsky.social closertotruth.com/contributor/...)
3/ Many congratulations to the two Chinese language winners, Xin Huang and Xiaoben Liu for their essays, which I am excited to read – along with the 7 honourable mentions and 25 shortlisted contributions.
January 14, 2026 at 5:47 PM
3/ Many congratulations to the two Chinese language winners, Xin Huang and Xiaoben Liu for their essays, which I am excited to read – along with the 7 honourable mentions and 25 shortlisted contributions.
9/ Granger Causality Maps for Langevin Systems was led by Lionel Barnett, and arose from work with Nadine Spychala as part of her excellent PhD thesis. Here’s the link: arxiv.org/abs/2512.16632
January 9, 2026 at 5:41 PM
9/ Granger Causality Maps for Langevin Systems was led by Lionel Barnett, and arose from work with Nadine Spychala as part of her excellent PhD thesis. Here’s the link: arxiv.org/abs/2512.16632
7/ Our new study solves both problems. Leveraging an analytic method for calculation of GCs for VOU processes directly from the model parameters, we can construct GC maps for Langevin systems over the entire phase space (averaging to obtain overall GC values). Job done! Here’s that Lorentz again:
January 9, 2026 at 5:41 PM
7/ Our new study solves both problems. Leveraging an analytic method for calculation of GCs for VOU processes directly from the model parameters, we can construct GC maps for Langevin systems over the entire phase space (averaging to obtain overall GC values). Job done! Here’s that Lorentz again:
6/ Not so fast … this approach, while clever, has serious problems: a shrinkage to zero as sampling rate increases, and (worse) “holes” in the GC maps where dynamics are locally unstable in phase space. This happens all the time: e.g., a Lorentz system:
January 9, 2026 at 5:41 PM
6/ Not so fast … this approach, while clever, has serious problems: a shrinkage to zero as sampling rate increases, and (worse) “holes” in the GC maps where dynamics are locally unstable in phase space. This happens all the time: e.g., a Lorentz system:
3/ GC analysis is mostly applied using linear modelling. Application to nonlinear systems remains challenging. Information-theoretic transfer entropy is sensitive to nonlinear effects but is difficult to estimate: journals.aps.org/prl/abstract...
January 9, 2026 at 5:41 PM
3/ GC analysis is mostly applied using linear modelling. Application to nonlinear systems remains challenging. Information-theoretic transfer entropy is sensitive to nonlinear effects but is difficult to estimate: journals.aps.org/prl/abstract...
2/ Granger causality (GC) is a powerful method for estimating directed information flow from time-series data, widely used in neuroscience and in many other fields www.jneurosci.org/content/35/8... h/t @xkcd.com
January 9, 2026 at 5:41 PM
2/ Granger causality (GC) is a powerful method for estimating directed information flow from time-series data, widely used in neuroscience and in many other fields www.jneurosci.org/content/35/8... h/t @xkcd.com
1/🧵 NEW PREPRINT! Granger Causality Maps for Langevin Systems – new preprint from the incomparable Lionel Barnett, w/ Benjamin Wahl, Nadine Spychala, and me – a Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science production. Link at end of thread.
January 9, 2026 at 5:41 PM
1/🧵 NEW PREPRINT! Granger Causality Maps for Langevin Systems – new preprint from the incomparable Lionel Barnett, w/ Benjamin Wahl, Nadine Spychala, and me – a Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science production. Link at end of thread.
Don’t panic! The stack of unsigned Being You at @blackwells.bsky.social Oxford have now been tracked down and duly signed. (& lovely to see them still on the “Best of Norrington Room” table 🙏🏽)
December 27, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Don’t panic! The stack of unsigned Being You at @blackwells.bsky.social Oxford have now been tracked down and duly signed. (& lovely to see them still on the “Best of Norrington Room” table 🙏🏽)
Rare unsigned copy of Being You located in Daunts, Summertown - and now duly signed 😎
December 24, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Rare unsigned copy of Being You located in Daunts, Summertown - and now duly signed 😎
.. and that's wrap! Thanks all round and great job :-)
December 12, 2025 at 8:38 PM
.. and that's wrap! Thanks all round and great job :-)
.. and here's the whole group #CIFARwinterschool 2025 in Montebello. Thanks again to #CIFAR and the Templeton World Charity Foundation for their generous support.
December 11, 2025 at 8:27 PM
.. and here's the whole group #CIFARwinterschool 2025 in Montebello. Thanks again to #CIFAR and the Templeton World Charity Foundation for their generous support.
Day 2 of the #CIFARwinterschool kicking off with extraordinary mind-jazz from Guillaume Dumas @introspection.bsky.social - former #CIFAR BMC Global Scholar & self-confessed anti-disciplinary researcher. This morning: neuro-AI, hyperscanning, social neuroscience, consciousness, & more
December 11, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Day 2 of the #CIFARwinterschool kicking off with extraordinary mind-jazz from Guillaume Dumas @introspection.bsky.social - former #CIFAR BMC Global Scholar & self-confessed anti-disciplinary researcher. This morning: neuro-AI, hyperscanning, social neuroscience, consciousness, & more
Brilliant talk by Justin Wood (Indiana) on his "digital twin studies" - raising newborn chicks, and artificial neural networks, in the same (virtual) environments - fantastic new perspective on the nature/nurture debate #CIFARwinterschool #TWCF www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
December 10, 2025 at 7:15 PM
Brilliant talk by Justin Wood (Indiana) on his "digital twin studies" - raising newborn chicks, and artificial neural networks, in the same (virtual) environments - fantastic new perspective on the nature/nurture debate #CIFARwinterschool #TWCF www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
Wonderful and inspiring opening session at the CIFAR/TWCF Winter School for the Neuroscience of Consciousness, here in beautiful wintery Montebello, in Quebec. All of the participants gave 60 second intros to themselves and their interests. What a great group of people.
December 10, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Wonderful and inspiring opening session at the CIFAR/TWCF Winter School for the Neuroscience of Consciousness, here in beautiful wintery Montebello, in Quebec. All of the participants gave 60 second intros to themselves and their interests. What a great group of people.
"Cognition all the way down". Great to see this fine new paper from @robertchisciure.bsky.social & @drmichaellevin.bsky.social out now in Synthese - introducing a new metric to quantify biological intelligence as search efficiency in multidimensional problem spaces link.springer.com/article/10.1...
November 10, 2025 at 2:46 PM
"Cognition all the way down". Great to see this fine new paper from @robertchisciure.bsky.social & @drmichaellevin.bsky.social out now in Synthese - introducing a new metric to quantify biological intelligence as search efficiency in multidimensional problem spaces link.springer.com/article/10.1...
6/ “Solving consciousness”—even partially—will have profound implications across science, medicine, animal welfare, law, and technology development, reshaping how we see ourselves and our relationships to both AI and the natural world
October 30, 2025 at 12:00 PM
6/ “Solving consciousness”—even partially—will have profound implications across science, medicine, animal welfare, law, and technology development, reshaping how we see ourselves and our relationships to both AI and the natural world
4/ There are many paths to future breakthroughs, including ‘computational (neuro)phenomenology’, adversarial collaborations, and ecological experimental design.
October 30, 2025 at 12:00 PM
4/ There are many paths to future breakthroughs, including ‘computational (neuro)phenomenology’, adversarial collaborations, and ecological experimental design.
But you are right that the TT is formally a test of what it takes for humans to attribute a property to a system, not of whether the system actually has the property (though some argue this is the same thing) - see attached (from an early draft of my BBS paper)
October 19, 2025 at 5:45 PM
But you are right that the TT is formally a test of what it takes for humans to attribute a property to a system, not of whether the system actually has the property (though some argue this is the same thing) - see attached (from an early draft of my BBS paper)