Michael David Kirchhoff
@kirchhoffmd.bsky.social
Associate Professor in the School of Liberal Arts, University of Wollongong, Australia.
Current research: The function and implication of using idealized methods to model the mind/brain in computational neurosience. Ongoing: FEP, 4E, metaphysical musings
Current research: The function and implication of using idealized methods to model the mind/brain in computational neurosience. Ongoing: FEP, 4E, metaphysical musings
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Intro to Michael Kirchhoff’s: The Idealized Mind — The Brains Blog
“Milk production at a dairy farm was low, so the farmer wrote to the local university, asking for help. A multidisciplinary team of professors was assembled, headed by a theoretical physicist, and …
philosophyofbrains.com
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/01/i... Introduction to the book symposium on The Idealized Mind on the Brain's Blog. New post everyday with a commentator and response by me. Commentators are Zoe Drayson, Corey Maley, Karl Friston and Frances Egan
Reposted by Michael David Kirchhoff
This is just not what LLMs are. If all they could do was reproduce their training set they wouldn't be able to do nearly all the things people regularly use them for. Please read the literature (e.g., here's a whole grade seminar I just taught - some good readings here: cogsci-llms.netlify.app )
Cognitive Science of Large Language Models
cogsci-llms.netlify.app
December 20, 2025 at 6:00 AM
This is just not what LLMs are. If all they could do was reproduce their training set they wouldn't be able to do nearly all the things people regularly use them for. Please read the literature (e.g., here's a whole grade seminar I just taught - some good readings here: cogsci-llms.netlify.app )
Reposted by Michael David Kirchhoff
A study co-authored by Princeton researchers finds that human brains process spoken language in a way that "closely mirrors the layered architecture of advanced AI language models."
How your brain understands language may be more like AI than previously thought
A new study reveals that the human brain processes spoken language in a sequence that closely mirrors the layered architecture of advanced AI language models. Using electrocorticography data from part...
medicalxpress.com
December 10, 2025 at 10:15 PM
A study co-authored by Princeton researchers finds that human brains process spoken language in a way that "closely mirrors the layered architecture of advanced AI language models."
Reposted by Michael David Kirchhoff
The December issue of TiCS is now online! tinyurl.com/42pysze4
December 15, 2025 at 6:07 PM
The December issue of TiCS is now online! tinyurl.com/42pysze4
Day 5 of the Brain's Blog symposium of 'The Idealized Mind'. Attached are links to Karl Friston's commentary and my response - a discussion about spherical cows and the FEP
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/05/the…
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https://philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/05/the…
December 6, 2025 at 3:33 AM
Day 5 of the Brain's Blog symposium of 'The Idealized Mind'. Attached are links to Karl Friston's commentary and my response - a discussion about spherical cows and the FEP
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/05/the…
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/05/res���
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/05/the…
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/05/res���
Day 4 of the Brain's Blog symposium of 'The Idealized Mind'. Attached are links to @coreymaley.net commentary and my response:
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/04/c...
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/04/a...
Am I committed to there being no physical computers that compute?
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/04/c...
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/04/a...
Am I committed to there being no physical computers that compute?
Corey Maley: Comments on The Idealized Mind — The Brains Blog
COMMENTS ON THE IDEALIZED MIND, BY MICHAEL D. KIRCHHOFFCorey J. Maley Purdue University cjmaley@purdue.edu Michael Kirchhoff’s book The Idealized Mind has many original and thought-provoking ideas,…
philosophyofbrains.com
December 4, 2025 at 7:28 PM
Day 4 of the Brain's Blog symposium of 'The Idealized Mind'. Attached are links to @coreymaley.net commentary and my response:
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/04/c...
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/04/a...
Am I committed to there being no physical computers that compute?
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/04/c...
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/04/a...
Am I committed to there being no physical computers that compute?
Day 3 of the Brain's Blog symposium of 'The Idealized Mind'. Attached are links to Frances Egan's commentary and my response:
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/03/s...
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/03/a...
Should we think that nervous systems compute? That's the topic of Day 3!
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/03/s...
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/03/a...
Should we think that nervous systems compute? That's the topic of Day 3!
Frances Egan: Some Physical Systems (Literally) Compute — The Brains Blog
Some Physical Systems (Literally) ComputeFrances Egan Rutgers University In his ambitious new book, Michael Kirchhoff argues that computational models cannot be literally true …
philosophyofbrains.com
December 3, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Day 3 of the Brain's Blog symposium of 'The Idealized Mind'. Attached are links to Frances Egan's commentary and my response:
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/03/s...
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/03/a...
Should we think that nervous systems compute? That's the topic of Day 3!
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/03/s...
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/03/a...
Should we think that nervous systems compute? That's the topic of Day 3!
Day 2 of the @philosophyofbrains.com symposium of The Idealized Mind. Attached are link to Zoe Drayson's commentary and my response.
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/02/c...
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/02/a...
How can idealized models explain if they don't represent? Have a look in the links!
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/02/c...
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/02/a...
How can idealized models explain if they don't represent? Have a look in the links!
Zoe Drayson: Challenging Kirchhoff on the Semantics of Models and Theories — The Brains Blog
Challenging Kirchhoff on the Semantics of Models and TheoriesZoe DraysonThe bold claim at the heart of Kirchhoff’s (2025) The Idealized Mind is that some scientific theories are neither true nor fa…
philosophyofbrains.com
December 2, 2025 at 11:10 PM
Day 2 of the @philosophyofbrains.com symposium of The Idealized Mind. Attached are link to Zoe Drayson's commentary and my response.
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/02/c...
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/02/a...
How can idealized models explain if they don't represent? Have a look in the links!
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/02/c...
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/02/a...
How can idealized models explain if they don't represent? Have a look in the links!
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/01/i... Introduction to the book symposium on The Idealized Mind on the Brain's Blog. New post everyday with a commentator and response by me. Commentators are Zoe Drayson, Corey Maley, Karl Friston and Frances Egan
Intro to Michael Kirchhoff’s: The Idealized Mind — The Brains Blog
“Milk production at a dairy farm was low, so the farmer wrote to the local university, asking for help. A multidisciplinary team of professors was assembled, headed by a theoretical physicist, and …
philosophyofbrains.com
December 2, 2025 at 3:55 AM
philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/01/i... Introduction to the book symposium on The Idealized Mind on the Brain's Blog. New post everyday with a commentator and response by me. Commentators are Zoe Drayson, Corey Maley, Karl Friston and Frances Egan
youtube.com/watch?v=R2P6... Great to be part of this podcast on The Idealized Mind hosted by Deepak Bhatt over on Business Talk. Interested in idealization, neuroscience and philosophy this should be interesting. Feedback welcomed!
The Idealized Mind: Rethinking Cognitive Science with Dr. Michael Kirchhoff
YouTube video by Business Talk
youtube.com
November 30, 2025 at 10:30 PM
youtube.com/watch?v=R2P6... Great to be part of this podcast on The Idealized Mind hosted by Deepak Bhatt over on Business Talk. Interested in idealization, neuroscience and philosophy this should be interesting. Feedback welcomed!
x.com/hellomrbhatt... Looking forward to diving into The Idealized Mind with Deepak Bhatt tomorrow on Business Talk
Deepak Bhatt on X: "Delighted to share that our next episode features Dr. @MdKirchhoff, Associate Professor in the school of Liberal Arts from the University of Wollongong, diving into “The Idealized Mind” and how idealized models are reshaping the way we think about cognition. https://t.co/yXjoQc62cG" / X
Delighted to share that our next episode features Dr. @MdKirchhoff, Associate Professor in the school of Liberal Arts from the University of Wollongong, diving into “The Idealized Mind” and how idealized models are reshaping the way we think about cognition. https://t.co/yXjoQc62cG
x.com
November 27, 2025 at 8:29 AM
x.com/hellomrbhatt... Looking forward to diving into The Idealized Mind with Deepak Bhatt tomorrow on Business Talk
A little interview based on The Idealized Mind
www.rorotoko.com/11/20251113-...
www.rorotoko.com/11/20251113-...
RORO
www.rorotoko.com
November 13, 2025 at 7:49 PM
A little interview based on The Idealized Mind
www.rorotoko.com/11/20251113-...
www.rorotoko.com/11/20251113-...
Reposted by Michael David Kirchhoff
Available #OpenAccess, Michael Kirchhoff's "The Idealized Mind" brings together ideas from the philosophy of cognitive science and the philosophy of science to reconcile scientific realism with model-based science: mitpress.mit.edu/978026255293...
September 20, 2025 at 9:40 PM
Available #OpenAccess, Michael Kirchhoff's "The Idealized Mind" brings together ideas from the philosophy of cognitive science and the philosophy of science to reconcile scientific realism with model-based science: mitpress.mit.edu/978026255293...
Reposted by Michael David Kirchhoff
Data only shows associations. Turning those into claims about mechanism or causation? That requires a Rosetta Stone of prior knowledge + theory. Resting-state fMRI is purely observational; correlation is its currency. From this, plenty of "theoretical toys" about brain function can be built...
Resting-State fMRI and the Risk of Overinterpretation: Noise, Mechanisms, and a Missing Rosetta Stone https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.16.676611v1
September 20, 2025 at 1:13 AM
Data only shows associations. Turning those into claims about mechanism or causation? That requires a Rosetta Stone of prior knowledge + theory. Resting-state fMRI is purely observational; correlation is its currency. From this, plenty of "theoretical toys" about brain function can be built...
Reposted by Michael David Kirchhoff
Second: Michael D. Kirchhoff @kirchhoffmd.bsky.social explores the relationship between mental fictionalism and successful idealizations in the sciences: doi.org/10.1080/0951...
Idealization and mental fictionalism
Cognitive scientists speak of codes, signals, encoding, decoding, computation, representation, and information-processing. The orthodox view is to take talk of neuronal signaling and computational ...
doi.org
September 15, 2025 at 1:15 PM
Second: Michael D. Kirchhoff @kirchhoffmd.bsky.social explores the relationship between mental fictionalism and successful idealizations in the sciences: doi.org/10.1080/0951...
Reposted by Michael David Kirchhoff
Not that it comes as much of a surprise to many of us, but it's worth emphasizing once again - the 👏 brain 👏 uses 👏 distributed 👏 coding 👏. 😁
Two new papers from the #IBL looking at brain-wide activity:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#neuroscience 🧪
Two new papers from the #IBL looking at brain-wide activity:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#neuroscience 🧪
Brain-wide representations of prior information in mouse decision-making - Nature
Brain-wide recordings in mice reveal that prior expectations are distributed through recurrent loops across all levels of cortical and subcortical processing.
www.nature.com
September 4, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Not that it comes as much of a surprise to many of us, but it's worth emphasizing once again - the 👏 brain 👏 uses 👏 distributed 👏 coding 👏. 😁
Two new papers from the #IBL looking at brain-wide activity:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#neuroscience 🧪
Two new papers from the #IBL looking at brain-wide activity:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#neuroscience 🧪
Reposted by Michael David Kirchhoff
🏆 Best Paper — Predictive Coding or Just Feature Discovery? An Alternative Account of Why Language Models Fit Brain Data: doi.org/10.1162/nol_...
Richard Antonello and @alexanderhuth.bsky.social
Richard Antonello and @alexanderhuth.bsky.social
Predictive Coding or Just Feature Discovery? An Alternative Account of Why Language Models Fit Brain Data
Abstract. Many recent studies have shown that representations drawn from neural network language models are extremely effective at predicting brain responses to natural language. But why do these…
doi.org
September 13, 2025 at 9:40 PM
🏆 Best Paper — Predictive Coding or Just Feature Discovery? An Alternative Account of Why Language Models Fit Brain Data: doi.org/10.1162/nol_...
Richard Antonello and @alexanderhuth.bsky.social
Richard Antonello and @alexanderhuth.bsky.social
Reposted by Michael David Kirchhoff
Come to Melbourne for the 2025 Conference of the Australasian Society for Philosophy and Psychology
Check out the great keynotes - submit your abstract
Come join this exciting community of researchers
Nov 24-25 - Register now!
#philosophy #neuroskyence #philsky
sites.google.com/monash.edu/a...
Check out the great keynotes - submit your abstract
Come join this exciting community of researchers
Nov 24-25 - Register now!
#philosophy #neuroskyence #philsky
sites.google.com/monash.edu/a...
ASPP 2025 Melbourne
Australasian Society for Philosophy and Psychology 2025 Conference
Melbourne, November 24th - 25th, 2025
sites.google.com
September 11, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Come to Melbourne for the 2025 Conference of the Australasian Society for Philosophy and Psychology
Check out the great keynotes - submit your abstract
Come join this exciting community of researchers
Nov 24-25 - Register now!
#philosophy #neuroskyence #philsky
sites.google.com/monash.edu/a...
Check out the great keynotes - submit your abstract
Come join this exciting community of researchers
Nov 24-25 - Register now!
#philosophy #neuroskyence #philsky
sites.google.com/monash.edu/a...
Looking forward to this podcast interview
September 9, 2025 at 2:38 AM
Looking forward to this podcast interview
Reposted by Michael David Kirchhoff
I am advertising two PhD positions in philosophy -- one for a domestic student, one for an international student. Both positions are 1 + 3 years, meaning that the first year is an MRes and the next three years are for the PhD.
www.mq.edu.au/research/phd...
www.mq.edu.au/research/phd...
PhD on the philosophy of networks of trust
This PhD scholarship is intended to benefit a researcher in empirically-oriented philosophy. Learn more and submit an expression of interest.
www.mq.edu.au
September 8, 2025 at 7:33 AM
I am advertising two PhD positions in philosophy -- one for a domestic student, one for an international student. Both positions are 1 + 3 years, meaning that the first year is an MRes and the next three years are for the PhD.
www.mq.edu.au/research/phd...
www.mq.edu.au/research/phd...
Exciting news. Following the publication of 'The Idealized Mind: From Model-based Science to Cognitive Science' (2025, MIT Press), I have signed a new contract for a completed and forthcoming book with MIT entitled 'The Idealized Brain: Uniting Philosophy of Science and Computational Neuroscience'.
September 5, 2025 at 7:41 AM
Exciting news. Following the publication of 'The Idealized Mind: From Model-based Science to Cognitive Science' (2025, MIT Press), I have signed a new contract for a completed and forthcoming book with MIT entitled 'The Idealized Brain: Uniting Philosophy of Science and Computational Neuroscience'.
'The Idealized Mind: From Model-based Science to Cognitive Science' published by MIT Press. Claims: models of the mind are idealized models; this is consistent with scientific realism; yet, it blocks realism about neural representation and neural computation based on evidence from neuroscience.
August 25, 2025 at 9:04 AM
'The Idealized Mind: From Model-based Science to Cognitive Science' published by MIT Press. Claims: models of the mind are idealized models; this is consistent with scientific realism; yet, it blocks realism about neural representation and neural computation based on evidence from neuroscience.