Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Marlo Paßler

AntonioFR @antferrui.bsky.social · Mar 17

Excited to share our latest story! We found disentangled memory representations in the hippocampus that generalized across time and environments, despite the seemingly random drift and remapping of single cells. This code enabled the transfer of prior knowledge to solve new tasks

6 57 140

Reposted by Marlo Paßler

Frances Egan @francesegan.bsky.social · Mar 11

Just published! Free download at mitpress.mit.edu/978026255160... Discounts available for anyone with a US mailing address at www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/777572... (use code MITP30 for 30% discount today only and READMIT20 for 20% discount anytime)

4 33 66

Reposted by Marlo Paßler

Matthias Michel @matthiasmichel.bsky.social · Mar 10

New version of "the letter" in Nature Neuroscience. Like many others in the field, I signed because I believe that IIT threatens to deligitimize the scientific study of consciousness: www.nature.com/articles/s41....

What makes a theory of consciousness unscientific? - Nature Neuroscience

Theories of consciousness have a long and controversial history. One well-known proposal — integrated information theory — has recently been labeled as ‘pseudoscience’, which has caused a heated open ...

www.nature.com

5 30 64

Reposted by Marlo Paßler

Naotsugu Tsuchiya @naotsuchiya.bsky.social · Mar 10

[what it's like to be Qstr-summer school?] 24 June 20 Qstr Summer School 4-2 Giulio Tononi & Matteo Grasso : IIT Wiki, Quality of space & time youtu.be/4OFbRkic9n8

24 June 20 Qstr Summer School 4-2 Giulio Tononi & Matteo Grasso : IIT Wiki, Quality of space & time

YouTube video by Neural basis of Consciousness & Qualia Structure

youtu.be

1 1

Reposted by Marlo Paßler

DocGaby @docgaby.bsky.social · Mar 1

Hier noch ein paar Alternativen:

Schluss mit Google, Apple und Meta

Kartenapps, Clouddienste oder Webbrowser: Viele unserer Daten liegt in den Händen von US-Unternehmen. Doch es gibt europäische Alternativen

www.fr.de

71 380 780

Marlo Paßler @passler.bsky.social · Feb 7

Ok. I re-read and here it basically means that some voxel constantly maps onto experiences rather than just physical properties… so retinal color sensitive cells do not constantly map onto color experience because sometimes they signal grey but we perceive yellow… hope that helps 😊

Marlo Paßler @passler.bsky.social · Feb 7

From the top of my head it should mean: same cells or voxels encode the same information across different contexts… unlike voxels in PFC for example which have been shown to encode different information in different tasks. But I would have to re-read the paper or ask John to be sure 😅

1

Reposted by Marlo Paßler

Adrien Doerig @adriendoerig.bsky.social · Jan 15

New preprint! Structuralist approaches are becoming popular in consciousness science. @passler.bsky.social and I propose criteria for which kinds of neural structures can be reliably linked to quality spaces derived from reports.

Marlo Paßler @passler.bsky.social · Jan 15

Thrilled to share a new preprint on Neurophenomenal Structuralism (NPS) by @adriendoerig.bsky.social & myself! We show why neural structures alone aren’t enough to capture conscious contents. We must consider computational context! (arxiv.org/abs/2412.20873). A Thread (1/15):

Neurophenomenal Structuralism and the Role of Computational Context

Neurophenomenal structuralism posits that conscious experiences are defined relationally and that their phenomenal structures are mirrored by neural structures. While this approach offers a promising ...

arxiv.org

2 3 20

Reposted by Marlo Paßler

Marlo Paßler @passler.bsky.social · Jan 15

Thrilled to share a new preprint on Neurophenomenal Structuralism (NPS) by @adriendoerig.bsky.social & myself! We show why neural structures alone aren’t enough to capture conscious contents. We must consider computational context! (arxiv.org/abs/2412.20873). A Thread (1/15):

Neurophenomenal Structuralism and the Role of Computational Context

Neurophenomenal structuralism posits that conscious experiences are defined relationally and that their phenomenal structures are mirrored by neural structures. While this approach offers a promising ...

arxiv.org

3 3 12

Marlo Paßler @passler.bsky.social · Jan 15

Thanks for the (m)nice study! And we referred to the consumer- vs. producer-based discussion in an earlier version but decided to concentrate only on the structural representation literature which is definitely inspired a lot by these ideas of Millikan and co!

2

Marlo Paßler @passler.bsky.social · Jan 15

Thanks! Looking forward to the discussion 😊

1

Marlo Paßler @passler.bsky.social · Jan 15

15/
Check out our preprint for all the details, examples, & philosophical grounding! We’d love your feedback, questions, and thoughts on how we can sharpen Neurophenomenal Structuralism further.
Thanks for reading & sharing!

Marlo Paßler @passler.bsky.social · Jan 15

14/
Thus, we can’t find NCCCs by only checking local neural patterns. We must trace how neural similarities feed into subjective reports—our best empirical window into the structure of subjective experience–functionally.

1 1

Marlo Paßler @passler.bsky.social · Jan 15

13/
It also critiques "rich global" structural theories (Fleming & Shea, 2024), which assume conscious content arises by "copying" local structures into a global workspace (GWS). But without any context, how do GWS consumer systems know if it’s a color space or an affect space?

1

Marlo Paßler @passler.bsky.social · Jan 15

12/
Our framework challenges "local" structural theories, which claim that sensory areas encode quality spaces. These theories overlook how downstream processes and computational context are essential for determining what the neural structure represents.

1 1

Marlo Paßler @passler.bsky.social · Jan 15

11/
In short, we argue NPS must be more than a “find-the-best-match” approach. We need neural structures with genuine causal impact on similarity ratings. Otherwise, structural matches are trivial or ambiguous. Our criteria help determine promising candidate structures for NPS.

1

Marlo Paßler @passler.bsky.social · Jan 15

10/
More precisely, the cell groups for R-G/B-Y could, in principle, be implanted into a new context to encode Arousal and Valence instead, by only altering up- and downstream systems. Content doesn’t arise from structure itself but from structure + computational context.

1 1

Marlo Paßler @passler.bsky.social · Jan 15

9/
Criterion 4: Contextualization

The content of a candidate neural structure cannot be determined in isolation. The same 2D activation space could encode color (red-green/blue-yellow) or affect (valence/arousal). The difference lies in how broader networks exploit it.

1

Marlo Paßler @passler.bsky.social · Jan 15

8/
Criterion 3: Exploitation

Downstream circuits must exploit the corresponding relational information of candidate neural structure. E.g., if the neural structure is only read out by winner-take-all mechanisms (which does not exploit relational information), then it fails the test.

1 1

Marlo Paßler @passler.bsky.social · Jan 15

7/
Criterion 2: Organization

The way a candidate neural structure impacts behavior must be systematic. Neural changes ⇒ similar changes in reported experiences. Structures that don’t systematically shift reported similarities (e.g., cause-effect structure of IIT) miss the mark.

1

Marlo Paßler @passler.bsky.social · Jan 15

6/
Criterion 1: Sensitivity

Downstream processes must be sensitive to the candidate neural structure. E.g., rearranging neurons in space without altering connectivity won’t affect downstream processing—so spatial structures (like retinotopic maps) fail this test.

1

Marlo Paßler @passler.bsky.social · Jan 15

5/
For that we propose 4 Criteria for structural candidate NCCCs:

- Sensitivity
- Organization
- Exploitation
- Contextualization

Together they ensure neural structures are genuine content drivers, instead of merely contingently corresponding with phenomenal structure.

1

Marlo Paßler @passler.bsky.social · Jan 15

4/
Why care? Because if a candidate neural structure mirrors phenomenal structure but doesn't shape the similarity reports used to scientifically approximate phenomenal structure, we get an “ant’s trail vs stock chart” situation: structural correspondence without explanatory power.

1

Marlo Paßler @passler.bsky.social · Jan 15

3/
Key question: How do we scientifically test the link between phenomenal and neural structures proposed by NPS? Our answer: mere neuro-phenomenal structural correspondence is insufficient—we must check if the candidate neural structures causally shape our similarity reports.

1

Marlo Paßler @passler.bsky.social · Jan 15

2/
Core idea of NPS: Phenomenal conscious experiences are relational. We capture their phenomenal structure in “quality spaces” (built from similarity reports) and can find the neural correlates of conscious contents (NCCCs) by finding neural populations with the same structure.

1 1