Gavin Foster🦧
@gibbonitathought.bsky.social
240 followers 600 following 200 posts
- Purdue PhD student / Affiliate at Social and Cognitive Origins Group - Animal cognition -- ToM - Norm psych. - Kant Prev: UofT, Carleton
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gibbonitathought.bsky.social
Really excited to share my first ever published paper, forthcoming in Philosophical Psychology: "From Monkeys to Infants: The Empirical Challenges Facing Mental Fictionalism"

It's open-access, which I'm really happy about.

Brief 🧵 on what it's all about!

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Gavin Foster🦧
caic-at-purdue.bsky.social
October 10th, philosophy grad student Eric Servatius will be presenting a paper titled 'Signaling contempt: Immigration, social identity, and public contempt expressions' at The Society for Ethics Across the Curriculum conference.

Eric's paper was also chosen as the best graduate paper for 2025! 🥳
Reposted by Gavin Foster🦧
caic-at-purdue.bsky.social
Philosophy grad student, @gibbonitathought.bsky.social has a new publication out now in Philosophical Psychology! 🦍 👶Check out the abstract and then read the whole paper here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Gavin Foster🦧
globalecoguy.bsky.social
Food causes 22-34% of climate change.
But it only gets 4% of the media coverage.

Why? Neglect. Misunderstanding. And a hell of a lot of greenwashing.
gibbonitathought.bsky.social
Rest in peace to Jane Goodall, without whom the field I have fallen in love with would not exist.

A giant who will be remembered for centuries to come.
Reposted by Gavin Foster🦧
merriam-webster.com
We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.
gibbonitathought.bsky.social
It better be better than On What Matters Vol 3
gibbonitathought.bsky.social
Ok fine I'll read Reasons and Persons
Reposted by Gavin Foster🦧
paulkelleher.net
We’re living though the Misanthropocene
Reposted by Gavin Foster🦧
archive.org
🎙️ Have you listened to the Future Knowledge #podcast from #InternetArchive + @AuthorsAlliance.bsky.social ?

Catch up on past episodes & get ready for a new one this week!

🎧 Listen & subscribe wherever you get your podcasts ⤵️
futureknowledge.transistor.fm

@Archive.org
Grid of promotional tiles for Future Knowledge podcast episodes one through nine.
Reposted by Gavin Foster🦧
drewscanlon.bsky.social
Hi Internet! I'm Drew and THIS IS MY FACE.

If this GIF has ever brought you joy in the past, I humbly ask you to consider making a donation to the National MS Society. It would mean a lot to me and to those I know affected by the disease!

Donate at blinkingguy.com
Reposted by Gavin Foster🦧
ncweaver.skerry-tech.com
Why is this horrible for Universities?

Just about everyone who isn't a citizen or green card holder already who's hired for a tenure track faculty position is hired through an H1B and then, after 3-5 years, applies for a green card.

This is literally "No more foreign professors can be hired"
gergely.pragmaticengineer.com
Those on an H1B cannot return to the US from tomorrow (Sunday) unless paying $100K. This is an out-of-the blue presidential action. We’ll see software engineers stranded abroad.

One easy to predict outcome: those on US visas will travel less… for work, for conferences etc.
Reposted by Gavin Foster🦧
ersatzdoctor.bsky.social
When I correct someone and they say “I bet you’re fun at parties,” I explain what a terrible bet that would be.
Reposted by Gavin Foster🦧
Reposted by Gavin Foster🦧
drrjwarren.bsky.social
One day, nearly 2000 years ago, a cat dashed across some drying tiles, somewhere near Hadrian's Wall.

It's immortality of a kind, isn't it?
Photo of square orange tiles, set into the ground, across one of which several cats footprints are clearly visible.
Reposted by Gavin Foster🦧
caic-at-purdue.bsky.social
New Publication! @evanwestra.bsky.social's paper
'Belief in Social Cognition' is forthcoming in The Oxford Handbook of the Cognitive Science of Belief 🥳 Evan argues that belief plays a modest role, rather than a central role, in everyday social cognition. Abstract here: philpapers.org/rec/WESBIS
gibbonitathought.bsky.social
out here fighting against the overwhelming fictionalist orthodoxy that has captured cog sci 😓✊
gibbonitathought.bsky.social
of collective game of pretense or collective narratives.

I conclude by arguing some strategies that fictionalists could adopt to help fill in this important gap.

Check it out and let me know what you think!
gibbonitathought.bsky.social
facing all versions is that, as of now, they have no story to tell about how the ability to engage in folk psychological practice emerges.

I show this by considering the strong evidence of infant and non-human primate mindreading. The problem: they appear to mindread without partaking in any kind
gibbonitathought.bsky.social
desires to others, that we are actually capturing real things in others' minds. Instead, they argue that we are engaging in a kind of collective fiction.

Mental fictionalists differ on the details about how this fiction is realized, as well as to its purpose. However, I argue that a common problem
gibbonitathought.bsky.social
In the last decade, a new interpretation of folk psychology has emerged, primarily due to the work of Meg Wallace, @adamtoonphilos.bsky.social, Tamás Demeter, as well as other great philosophers.

They argue that realists are wrong to think that when we attribute mental states such as beliefs or
gibbonitathought.bsky.social
Really excited to share my first ever published paper, forthcoming in Philosophical Psychology: "From Monkeys to Infants: The Empirical Challenges Facing Mental Fictionalism"

It's open-access, which I'm really happy about.

Brief 🧵 on what it's all about!

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....