Atanas Stankov
@neuronasko.bsky.social
CUNY neuroscience PhD candidate. Interested in comp neuroscience, comp social science, causality, and philosophy of science. Previously at UMich[as visiting student]/Stanford/ETH Zurich & UZH/UIUC. Opinions are my own.
I’ve noticed this bothers a particular group of ML/AI/math researchers. They just don’t like the mere hypothesis that natural phenomena can be black box that reveals itself over time and that an explicit model can’t be intuited from just theory. Empiricism bites back on a first principles level.
September 23, 2025 at 4:10 PM
I’ve noticed this bothers a particular group of ML/AI/math researchers. They just don’t like the mere hypothesis that natural phenomena can be black box that reveals itself over time and that an explicit model can’t be intuited from just theory. Empiricism bites back on a first principles level.
I can use perceptual control (my motor system) to intervene and new create meaning.
August 31, 2025 at 9:28 AM
I can use perceptual control (my motor system) to intervene and new create meaning.
Conjecture: This Elias Bareinboim post is a clue on how to create a strategy to merge biophysical modeling to causal inference because the No Free Lunch theorem is conceptually tied to Landauer’s Principle via 2nd law of thermodynamics in non-equilibrium states [David Wolpert’s work].
August 29, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Conjecture: This Elias Bareinboim post is a clue on how to create a strategy to merge biophysical modeling to causal inference because the No Free Lunch theorem is conceptually tied to Landauer’s Principle via 2nd law of thermodynamics in non-equilibrium states [David Wolpert’s work].
Boss, I’m getting whiplash here.
August 20, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Boss, I’m getting whiplash here.
Cool even r/singularity, one of the most accelerationist subreddits, is starting to ask key questions on the theoretical possibilities on the claims by Ray Kurzweil and AI authors. The post got ratio-ed but still has a size-able amount of upvotes.
August 17, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Cool even r/singularity, one of the most accelerationist subreddits, is starting to ask key questions on the theoretical possibilities on the claims by Ray Kurzweil and AI authors. The post got ratio-ed but still has a size-able amount of upvotes.
2nd highest voted post on r/MachineLearning in the past week. Are the structural issues are general across sciences bc SfN has similar vibes? With microblogging and blogging (Medium/Substack/arXiv) the short to long form communication style is evolving and of course original papers are still king.
August 16, 2025 at 9:51 PM
2nd highest voted post on r/MachineLearning in the past week. Are the structural issues are general across sciences bc SfN has similar vibes? With microblogging and blogging (Medium/Substack/arXiv) the short to long form communication style is evolving and of course original papers are still king.
“Educational Purposes Only” sure… 👀
August 13, 2025 at 11:46 PM
“Educational Purposes Only” sure… 👀
Chess evaluation bar over time. I didn’t resign just because I spaced out of tiredness and kept going. The game was lost but then bam. A winning blunder.
August 12, 2025 at 5:35 AM
Chess evaluation bar over time. I didn’t resign just because I spaced out of tiredness and kept going. The game was lost but then bam. A winning blunder.
Can you interview someone like Chomba Bupe who is one few tech entrepreneurs who I spotted is critical and open about these definitions and concepts. He even disagreed with Gary Marcus on the plausibility of AGI (screenshot). There are other putative expert skeptics of AGI but not yet open about it.
July 1, 2025 at 10:37 PM
Can you interview someone like Chomba Bupe who is one few tech entrepreneurs who I spotted is critical and open about these definitions and concepts. He even disagreed with Gary Marcus on the plausibility of AGI (screenshot). There are other putative expert skeptics of AGI but not yet open about it.
At a quick glance, what makes this a seemingly breakthrough moment is efficiency of the NYC primary outcome based on direct or indirect campaign spending. Loose metaphors of this are Moneyball and DeepSeek. If the message/strategy resonates the price indicators are spectacular.
June 25, 2025 at 2:49 PM
At a quick glance, what makes this a seemingly breakthrough moment is efficiency of the NYC primary outcome based on direct or indirect campaign spending. Loose metaphors of this are Moneyball and DeepSeek. If the message/strategy resonates the price indicators are spectacular.
Right. Even Gary is not conservative enough on the expectations of what is computable in relation to the brain with the current technology. Loving online the debates these days.
June 10, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Right. Even Gary is not conservative enough on the expectations of what is computable in relation to the brain with the current technology. Loving online the debates these days.
PS: The collective vision of this op-ed has a fast track hypothesis of systems evolution for industry. How would industry be unbound to the same evolutionary constraints? (It’s a Socratic question. I want to keep the discussion ball rolling even with bad metaphors.) www.nature.com/articles/s41...
June 6, 2025 at 1:45 AM
PS: The collective vision of this op-ed has a fast track hypothesis of systems evolution for industry. How would industry be unbound to the same evolutionary constraints? (It’s a Socratic question. I want to keep the discussion ball rolling even with bad metaphors.) www.nature.com/articles/s41...
And yet the trend is up and might go up as Twitter becomes worse. The only rule is to stay engaged and let the social network work because it’s an adaptive system. I’m baffled by a lot of folks, including many scientists, who don’t have an intuition of how new media can lead positive outcomes.
June 4, 2025 at 5:01 PM
And yet the trend is up and might go up as Twitter becomes worse. The only rule is to stay engaged and let the social network work because it’s an adaptive system. I’m baffled by a lot of folks, including many scientists, who don’t have an intuition of how new media can lead positive outcomes.
Is calcium influx detection for vesicle release in the pre-synaptic bouton a part of the “neural code”? This is as precise as it gets but the supporting protein architecture is very complex. The closest “foundational model” I can think of is AlphaFold. Is that an appropriate analogy?
June 3, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Is calcium influx detection for vesicle release in the pre-synaptic bouton a part of the “neural code”? This is as precise as it gets but the supporting protein architecture is very complex. The closest “foundational model” I can think of is AlphaFold. Is that an appropriate analogy?
Three more anecdotal screenshots.
May 30, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Three more anecdotal screenshots.
Am I hallucinating that A-list neuroscientists and AI researchers have been saying insane things lately? 1/2
May 30, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Am I hallucinating that A-list neuroscientists and AI researchers have been saying insane things lately? 1/2
PS: I’m stretched out pretty thinly on other causal inference social issues, but I stand with these folks on the claims on mental health being caused by cell phones/social media is a simplistic and harmful argument because it’s driving policy change across many states and countries.
May 18, 2025 at 1:50 AM
PS: I’m stretched out pretty thinly on other causal inference social issues, but I stand with these folks on the claims on mental health being caused by cell phones/social media is a simplistic and harmful argument because it’s driving policy change across many states and countries.
Here’s a picture of the dust storm sunset from the ‘burbs.
May 17, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Here’s a picture of the dust storm sunset from the ‘burbs.
Here it is to make one connection. link.springer.com/article/10.1...
April 21, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Here it is to make one connection. link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Gov’t rn. I want to communicate this isn’t 20th century fascism, this is Classical absurdity. I’m trying to use memes to communicate what is actually happening.
April 17, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Gov’t rn. I want to communicate this isn’t 20th century fascism, this is Classical absurdity. I’m trying to use memes to communicate what is actually happening.
I’m going to play optimist devil’s advocate here in that blatant crypto-style pump-and-dump schemes using the stock market is probably one of the most effective way to convince hard core conservatives of the scam.
April 9, 2025 at 5:58 PM
I’m going to play optimist devil’s advocate here in that blatant crypto-style pump-and-dump schemes using the stock market is probably one of the most effective way to convince hard core conservatives of the scam.
These markets are not legitimate: here is one oligarch attacking another. Why do these people have so much artificial power to handle our retirement? Today the NASDAQ swung 10% intraday trough-to-peak because of rumors. These markets are not real. The same way the USSR was not real in the end.
April 7, 2025 at 4:56 PM
These markets are not legitimate: here is one oligarch attacking another. Why do these people have so much artificial power to handle our retirement? Today the NASDAQ swung 10% intraday trough-to-peak because of rumors. These markets are not real. The same way the USSR was not real in the end.
So far I’m seeing two ways to model emergent behavior of crowds: one is to hand engineer a System Dynamic Model from expert knowledge (left) and the other is to use a known simple physical model (right). Both of these examples are at levels of analysis and deal with specific constraints. 1/2
March 30, 2025 at 5:02 PM
So far I’m seeing two ways to model emergent behavior of crowds: one is to hand engineer a System Dynamic Model from expert knowledge (left) and the other is to use a known simple physical model (right). Both of these examples are at levels of analysis and deal with specific constraints. 1/2