Dan Levenstein
@dlevenstein.bsky.social
Neuroscientist, in theory. Studying sleep and navigation in 🧠s and 💻s.
Assistant Professor at Yale Neuroscience, Wu Tsai Institute.
An emergent property of a few billion neurons, their interactions with each other and the world over ~1 century.
Assistant Professor at Yale Neuroscience, Wu Tsai Institute.
An emergent property of a few billion neurons, their interactions with each other and the world over ~1 century.
Lyrics are just a vehicle for syllables.
November 1, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Lyrics are just a vehicle for syllables.
Putting aside (for now) the question of what a computer is, and what it would mean for the brain to be one, computationalism is a useful simplification strategy - it lets us isolate the "functional" aspects of neuronal biology from the aspects that are "merely", irrelevant, background support.
October 29, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Putting aside (for now) the question of what a computer is, and what it would mean for the brain to be one, computationalism is a useful simplification strategy - it lets us isolate the "functional" aspects of neuronal biology from the aspects that are "merely", irrelevant, background support.
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
🐝Your Brain Is Like A Computer🐝
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
🐝Your Brain Is Like A Computer🐝
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
October 15, 2025 at 10:24 PM
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
🐝Your Brain Is Like A Computer🐝
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
🐝Your Brain Is Like A Computer🐝
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
The funny thing about the brain is that it’s quite adaptive - its operations depend on the situation it finds itself in.
So, do these points of incommensurability reflect different Psychologies (the field) that carve the mind at different joints, or different psychologies (the object of study)?
So, do these points of incommensurability reflect different Psychologies (the field) that carve the mind at different joints, or different psychologies (the object of study)?
September 22, 2025 at 1:19 PM
The funny thing about the brain is that it’s quite adaptive - its operations depend on the situation it finds itself in.
So, do these points of incommensurability reflect different Psychologies (the field) that carve the mind at different joints, or different psychologies (the object of study)?
So, do these points of incommensurability reflect different Psychologies (the field) that carve the mind at different joints, or different psychologies (the object of study)?
@patrickmineault.bsky.social showed this slide last week at #neuro4pros, which I think captures the potential pros and how they change as a f’n of your expertise, and warned about the danger zone of “cowboy and pray” 🤠🙏☹️ (big potential con, IMO)
September 4, 2025 at 12:31 PM
@patrickmineault.bsky.social showed this slide last week at #neuro4pros, which I think captures the potential pros and how they change as a f’n of your expertise, and warned about the danger zone of “cowboy and pray” 🤠🙏☹️ (big potential con, IMO)
Beyond the 2-body solution: how theorists can be hubs in cross-disciplinary collaborations.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
August 31, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Beyond the 2-body solution: how theorists can be hubs in cross-disciplinary collaborations.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
The shitty first draft is and always will be the number one strategy for writing well.
Editing is a craft you can hone. Writing from scratch is a different dumpster fire every time you put a pen to a blank page.
Editing is a craft you can hone. Writing from scratch is a different dumpster fire every time you put a pen to a blank page.
August 17, 2025 at 9:37 PM
The shitty first draft is and always will be the number one strategy for writing well.
Editing is a craft you can hone. Writing from scratch is a different dumpster fire every time you put a pen to a blank page.
Editing is a craft you can hone. Writing from scratch is a different dumpster fire every time you put a pen to a blank page.
Reflex theory eventually fell out of favor, but there’s a continuity through cybernetics to modern computational theories, which “grew out of the need to look inside the behaviorist's black box, without abandoning the idea that the behaving animal is more of a passive machine than an active agent.”
July 23, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Reflex theory eventually fell out of favor, but there’s a continuity through cybernetics to modern computational theories, which “grew out of the need to look inside the behaviorist's black box, without abandoning the idea that the behaving animal is more of a passive machine than an active agent.”
The challenge to reflex theory was its ecological validity - anything more than simple reflexes failed to generalize beyond the lab.
A really interesting connection here to agency ("spontaneous, self-determined activity of the organism"), and abstracting away causes "within the mind of the animal".
A really interesting connection here to agency ("spontaneous, self-determined activity of the organism"), and abstracting away causes "within the mind of the animal".
July 22, 2025 at 6:55 PM
The challenge to reflex theory was its ecological validity - anything more than simple reflexes failed to generalize beyond the lab.
A really interesting connection here to agency ("spontaneous, self-determined activity of the organism"), and abstracting away causes "within the mind of the animal".
A really interesting connection here to agency ("spontaneous, self-determined activity of the organism"), and abstracting away causes "within the mind of the animal".
The first example is reflex theory: that the nervous system, and behavior, can be decomposed into the joint action of simple responses.
An abstraction made for pragmatic reasons, which nevertheless came with a view of brains as machine-like responders to external stimuli.
An abstraction made for pragmatic reasons, which nevertheless came with a view of brains as machine-like responders to external stimuli.
July 22, 2025 at 2:42 PM
The first example is reflex theory: that the nervous system, and behavior, can be decomposed into the joint action of simple responses.
An abstraction made for pragmatic reasons, which nevertheless came with a view of brains as machine-like responders to external stimuli.
An abstraction made for pragmatic reasons, which nevertheless came with a view of brains as machine-like responders to external stimuli.
The reading this week is particularly good. Short and sweet musings on organized complexity, the importance of interdisciplinary teams, and the values of science.
www.heilungshan.com/complexity/W...
www.heilungshan.com/complexity/W...
July 20, 2025 at 1:07 PM
The reading this week is particularly good. Short and sweet musings on organized complexity, the importance of interdisciplinary teams, and the values of science.
www.heilungshan.com/complexity/W...
www.heilungshan.com/complexity/W...
sorry not sorry I had to do it.
July 11, 2025 at 5:41 PM
sorry not sorry I had to do it.
Systems consolidation theory - there's no one model that you would say IS systems consolidation theory. Rather, it's a collection of models (including diagrammatic and word models), which together comprise the theory, each one instantiating different aspects, and potentially capturing different data
July 7, 2025 at 1:36 PM
Systems consolidation theory - there's no one model that you would say IS systems consolidation theory. Rather, it's a collection of models (including diagrammatic and word models), which together comprise the theory, each one instantiating different aspects, and potentially capturing different data
I’m reminded of one of my favorite quotes from Eve Marder: "The process of turning a word model into a formal mathematical model invariably forces the experimentalist to confront his or her hidden assumptions."
The point isn’t to capture all the richness, it’s to put your money where your mouth is.
The point isn’t to capture all the richness, it’s to put your money where your mouth is.
July 7, 2025 at 11:36 AM
I’m reminded of one of my favorite quotes from Eve Marder: "The process of turning a word model into a formal mathematical model invariably forces the experimentalist to confront his or her hidden assumptions."
The point isn’t to capture all the richness, it’s to put your money where your mouth is.
The point isn’t to capture all the richness, it’s to put your money where your mouth is.
👀 keeping my eyes out for a tusk
PS your book is featured in a talk I'm putting together :D
PS your book is featured in a talk I'm putting together :D
June 30, 2025 at 6:51 PM
👀 keeping my eyes out for a tusk
PS your book is featured in a talk I'm putting together :D
PS your book is featured in a talk I'm putting together :D
Would this put you in the camp of "perspective 1"?
(I agree that implementation shouldn't be considered separately, but I disagree that objective functions aren't useful theoretical constructs for studying biology)
(I agree that implementation shouldn't be considered separately, but I disagree that objective functions aren't useful theoretical constructs for studying biology)
June 30, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Would this put you in the camp of "perspective 1"?
(I agree that implementation shouldn't be considered separately, but I disagree that objective functions aren't useful theoretical constructs for studying biology)
(I agree that implementation shouldn't be considered separately, but I disagree that objective functions aren't useful theoretical constructs for studying biology)
Will be giving a talk at the CNS*2025 workshop - Emerging Research Topics in NeuroAI, which is quite relevant to some discussions on here over the past week or so.
June 27, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Will be giving a talk at the CNS*2025 workshop - Emerging Research Topics in NeuroAI, which is quite relevant to some discussions on here over the past week or so.
Related, from @kordinglab.bsky.social
June 25, 2025 at 5:14 PM
Related, from @kordinglab.bsky.social
…and make sure you pin the “popular with friends” and “quiet posters” feeds. Your friends are a much better algorithm than discover, and the ones that post the least often post the most interesting stuff.
May 16, 2025 at 4:23 PM
…and make sure you pin the “popular with friends” and “quiet posters” feeds. Your friends are a much better algorithm than discover, and the ones that post the least often post the most interesting stuff.
So close, and yet so far
May 3, 2025 at 1:31 PM
So close, and yet so far
Absolutely agree! (See this passage from link.springer.com/article/10.1... 😊)
Do you think neuroAI has a unique (but possibly overlapping) set of questions that distinguish it from eg comp or cog neuro? I’d bet yes, but it would be good to see them spelled out in, eg, a perspective paper 😛
Do you think neuroAI has a unique (but possibly overlapping) set of questions that distinguish it from eg comp or cog neuro? I’d bet yes, but it would be good to see them spelled out in, eg, a perspective paper 😛
April 29, 2025 at 3:22 PM
Absolutely agree! (See this passage from link.springer.com/article/10.1... 😊)
Do you think neuroAI has a unique (but possibly overlapping) set of questions that distinguish it from eg comp or cog neuro? I’d bet yes, but it would be good to see them spelled out in, eg, a perspective paper 😛
Do you think neuroAI has a unique (but possibly overlapping) set of questions that distinguish it from eg comp or cog neuro? I’d bet yes, but it would be good to see them spelled out in, eg, a perspective paper 😛
this is quite cool. let me know if you get it set up!
April 28, 2025 at 6:32 PM
this is quite cool. let me know if you get it set up!