Pinned
Evan Thompson
@evanthompson.bsky.social
· Nov 22
Since so many new people are arriving to bluesky these days, I'm just going to pin this to my profile for a while.
I'm happy to announce that I've been awarded the Mind-Matter Prize by the Society for Mind-Matter Research. (See "news" at the top right). My prize-acceptance Lecture will be at the Society's Models of Consciousness Conference in Copenhagen, October 12-16, 2026. www.mindmatter.de/index.html
Society for Mind-Matter Research
www.mindmatter.de
December 26, 2025 at 7:12 PM
I'm happy to announce that I've been awarded the Mind-Matter Prize by the Society for Mind-Matter Research. (See "news" at the top right). My prize-acceptance Lecture will be at the Society's Models of Consciousness Conference in Copenhagen, October 12-16, 2026. www.mindmatter.de/index.html
Happy to announce this NEH Summer Institute at UC Berkeley, co-directed by @christiancoseru.bsky.social @alvanoe.bsky.social and yours truly @evanthompson.bsky.social www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~skneh/
Self-Knowledge for Humans and Artificial Systems – NEH Summer Institute, UC Berkeley
An interdisciplinary NEH Summer Institute exploring the nature of self-knowledge in humans and artificial systems
www.ocf.berkeley.edu
December 11, 2025 at 11:04 PM
Happy to announce this NEH Summer Institute at UC Berkeley, co-directed by @christiancoseru.bsky.social @alvanoe.bsky.social and yours truly @evanthompson.bsky.social www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~skneh/
Reposted by Evan Thompson
The Blind Spot Podcast was an Instant Hit in 2025 according to
Spotify. Have you been tuning in to our conversations about Life, The Universe and Everything? It's science from a different perspective.
The band = me, @evanthompson.bsky.social, Marcelo Gleiser.
Spotify. Have you been tuning in to our conversations about Life, The Universe and Everything? It's science from a different perspective.
The band = me, @evanthompson.bsky.social, Marcelo Gleiser.
December 11, 2025 at 6:20 PM
The Blind Spot Podcast was an Instant Hit in 2025 according to
Spotify. Have you been tuning in to our conversations about Life, The Universe and Everything? It's science from a different perspective.
The band = me, @evanthompson.bsky.social, Marcelo Gleiser.
Spotify. Have you been tuning in to our conversations about Life, The Universe and Everything? It's science from a different perspective.
The band = me, @evanthompson.bsky.social, Marcelo Gleiser.
Reposted by Evan Thompson
🎉 Congratulations to @evanthompson.bsky.social and @kiransoma.bsky.social for being newly named Distinguished University Scholars, one of UBC’s highest honours for faculty excellence. 👏 @ubcphilosophy.bsky.social @psych.ubc.ca
Discover more about their work and contributions ⬇️
Discover more about their work and contributions ⬇️
Arts faculty named 2025 Distinguished University Scholars - Faculty of Arts
Dr. Evan Thompson (Philosophy) and Dr. Kiran Soma (Psychology) have been named Distinguished University Scholars, one of UBC’s highest honours for faculty excellence.
www.arts.ubc.ca
December 5, 2025 at 8:00 PM
🎉 Congratulations to @evanthompson.bsky.social and @kiransoma.bsky.social for being newly named Distinguished University Scholars, one of UBC’s highest honours for faculty excellence. 👏 @ubcphilosophy.bsky.social @psych.ubc.ca
Discover more about their work and contributions ⬇️
Discover more about their work and contributions ⬇️
Reposted by Evan Thompson
Congratulations to Dr. Evan Thompson, who was recently named a UBC Distinguished University Scholar! buff.ly/D0kniM3
November 28, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Congratulations to Dr. Evan Thompson, who was recently named a UBC Distinguished University Scholar! buff.ly/D0kniM3
Here's my review in Mind of Mazviita Chirimuuta's fantastic book The Brain Abstracted. @pessoabrain.bsky.social you'll be interested in this one! academic.oup.com/mind/advance...
The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience, by M. Chirimuuta
‘What’s in the brain that ink may character?’ asked Warren S. McCulloch (1964) (borrowing from Shakespeare) shortly before his death. Trained in philosophy
academic.oup.com
November 27, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Here's my review in Mind of Mazviita Chirimuuta's fantastic book The Brain Abstracted. @pessoabrain.bsky.social you'll be interested in this one! academic.oup.com/mind/advance...
Précis of my book with @adamfrank4.bsky.social and Marcelo Gleiser. Soon to be followed with a response to commentators. The Blind Spot rdcu.be/eQkzc
Précis of the blind spot: Why science cannot ignore human experience
rdcu.be
November 17, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Précis of my book with @adamfrank4.bsky.social and Marcelo Gleiser. Soon to be followed with a response to commentators. The Blind Spot rdcu.be/eQkzc
@amandagefter.bsky.social writing in Nautilus about a meeting on intelligence in which I participated last year in Tuscany.
What happens when you take a handful of scientists and philosophers, stick them in a 500-year-old church in the middle of Tuscany, and ask them to redefine "intelligence"? I had the transformative experience of finding out. nautil.us/what-is-inte...
What Is Intelligence?
What Is Intelligence? At a church in Italy, we sought to shed an old definition for one that could save us.
nautil.us
October 23, 2025 at 11:17 PM
@amandagefter.bsky.social writing in Nautilus about a meeting on intelligence in which I participated last year in Tuscany.
Go glial cells! More and more evidence keeps pouring in that the cognitive brain is not just a neuronal network. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Spontaneous activity of astrocytes is a stochastic functional signal for memory consolidation | PNAS
In the absence of explicit neuronal inputs, the glial cell astrocytes exhibit recurring
intracellular Ca2+ fluctuations, primarily localized at thi...
www.pnas.org
October 21, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Go glial cells! More and more evidence keeps pouring in that the cognitive brain is not just a neuronal network. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Reposted by Evan Thompson
New preprint of a theoretical paper with @evanthompson.bsky.social. We discuss using information theoretic approaches to test the role of emergent interaction dynamics hypothesized by #ParticipatorySensemaking on attention and agency — using dance improv as a laboratory: osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
October 21, 2025 at 3:49 PM
New preprint of a theoretical paper with @evanthompson.bsky.social. We discuss using information theoretic approaches to test the role of emergent interaction dynamics hypothesized by #ParticipatorySensemaking on attention and agency — using dance improv as a laboratory: osf.io/preprints/ps...
The Third Entity: Participatory Sense-Making, Agency, and Attentional Dynamics osf.io/preprints/ps... New paper by @beckety.bsky.social and yours truly.
OSF
osf.io
October 21, 2025 at 3:05 PM
The Third Entity: Participatory Sense-Making, Agency, and Attentional Dynamics osf.io/preprints/ps... New paper by @beckety.bsky.social and yours truly.
Reposted by Evan Thompson
Excited to learn about the Blind Spot podcast with @evanthompson.bsky.social @adamfrank4.bsky.social and Marcelo Gleiser.
October 6, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Excited to learn about the Blind Spot podcast with @evanthompson.bsky.social @adamfrank4.bsky.social and Marcelo Gleiser.
Death, Grief, and Radical Hope by @beckety.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/becketto...
Death, Grief, and Radical Hope
Crepe myrtle’s confetti of flowers.
open.substack.com
August 27, 2025 at 6:22 PM
Death, Grief, and Radical Hope by @beckety.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/becketto...
Reposted by Evan Thompson
Grappling w my identity as a reluctant enactivist...
My favorite formulation of the approach so far is @xabibaran.bsky.social's "Autonomy and enactivism: Towards a theory of sensorimotor autonomous agency" (2017)
link.springer.com/content/pdf/...
IMO, it does three great things:
My favorite formulation of the approach so far is @xabibaran.bsky.social's "Autonomy and enactivism: Towards a theory of sensorimotor autonomous agency" (2017)
link.springer.com/content/pdf/...
IMO, it does three great things:
link.springer.com
July 18, 2025 at 9:20 AM
Grappling w my identity as a reluctant enactivist...
My favorite formulation of the approach so far is @xabibaran.bsky.social's "Autonomy and enactivism: Towards a theory of sensorimotor autonomous agency" (2017)
link.springer.com/content/pdf/...
IMO, it does three great things:
My favorite formulation of the approach so far is @xabibaran.bsky.social's "Autonomy and enactivism: Towards a theory of sensorimotor autonomous agency" (2017)
link.springer.com/content/pdf/...
IMO, it does three great things:
Reposted by Evan Thompson
How ChatGPT is transforming agency:
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
If you are interested on the ontological status of LLMs or want to get a better technical grasp on their internal functioning (without a maths or engineering background) this might be a good starting point.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
If you are interested on the ontological status of LLMs or want to get a better technical grasp on their internal functioning (without a maths or engineering background) this might be a good starting point.
Transforming agency: On the mode of existence of large language models - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences - This paper investigates the ontological characterization of Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. Between inflationary and deflationary accounts, we...
link.springer.com
August 23, 2025 at 2:09 PM
How ChatGPT is transforming agency:
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
If you are interested on the ontological status of LLMs or want to get a better technical grasp on their internal functioning (without a maths or engineering background) this might be a good starting point.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
If you are interested on the ontological status of LLMs or want to get a better technical grasp on their internal functioning (without a maths or engineering background) this might be a good starting point.
So much for the Indian philosophical trope "horns of a rabbit" (used to signify nonexistence). www.cbc.ca/news/science...
Rabbits with strange horn-like growths spotted in Colorado | CBC News
Photos of rabbits in Colorado with grotesque, horn-like growths have been circulating on social media. Scientists say the photos are literally viral.
www.cbc.ca
August 14, 2025 at 7:23 PM
So much for the Indian philosophical trope "horns of a rabbit" (used to signify nonexistence). www.cbc.ca/news/science...
Reposted by Evan Thompson
🤔 How can we study #consciousness between people, at the social level? 🧠✨ New #preprint co-led by Anne Monnier & Lena Adel: “Now is the Time: Operationalizing Generative Neurophenomenology through Interpersonal Methods” 🧵(1/3)
August 8, 2025 at 3:16 PM
🤔 How can we study #consciousness between people, at the social level? 🧠✨ New #preprint co-led by Anne Monnier & Lena Adel: “Now is the Time: Operationalizing Generative Neurophenomenology through Interpersonal Methods” 🧵(1/3)
Reposted by Evan Thompson
Algorithms don't play & animals only play when they feel safe. ❤️ Ep 65 with Julian Kiverstein (Amsterdam Medical) looks at how play relates to surprise, risk, & our capacity to handle uncertainty. New insights on Active Inference & the role of The Embodied Mind #EmbodiedMInd #play #loveandphilosophy
Play and the Mental Sweet Spot
Listen now (83 mins) | Surprise, Risk, Flourishing & Active Inference with Julian Kiverstein
open.substack.com
July 16, 2025 at 9:03 PM
Algorithms don't play & animals only play when they feel safe. ❤️ Ep 65 with Julian Kiverstein (Amsterdam Medical) looks at how play relates to surprise, risk, & our capacity to handle uncertainty. New insights on Active Inference & the role of The Embodied Mind #EmbodiedMInd #play #loveandphilosophy
Reposted by Evan Thompson
In this episode Julian credits @evanthompson.bsky.social and The Embodied Mind as his primary inspiration
July 19, 2025 at 2:23 PM
In this episode Julian credits @evanthompson.bsky.social and The Embodied Mind as his primary inspiration
Very nice to see something intelligent about AI and about putting it to a good use for a change. www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHlL...
Artificial intelligence in the BC Wildfire Service
YouTube video by The Exchange
www.youtube.com
July 16, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Very nice to see something intelligent about AI and about putting it to a good use for a change. www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHlL...
New episode with yours truly and @adamfrank4.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCO-...
The Blind Spot Podcast - Episode 7, Life: Beyond the Machine Metaphor
YouTube video by The Blind Spot Podcast
www.youtube.com
July 10, 2025 at 11:13 PM
New episode with yours truly and @adamfrank4.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCO-...
Why Science Hasn’t Solved Consciousness (Yet) www.noemamag.com/why-science-... by @adamfrank4.bsky.social
Why Science Hasn’t Solved Consciousness (Yet) | NOEMA
To understand life, we must stop treating organisms like machines and minds like code.
www.noemamag.com
July 9, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Why Science Hasn’t Solved Consciousness (Yet) www.noemamag.com/why-science-... by @adamfrank4.bsky.social