Susanna Schellenberg
@sschellenberg.bsky.social
Distinguished Prof of Philosophy and Cognitive Science, Guggenheim Fellow, Author of The Unity of Perception (OUP 2018), http://tinyurl.com/2p8ttuux
perception, cognition, reflexivity in biological and AI systems.🤖🧠👩🔬🧪
http://susannaschellenberg.org
perception, cognition, reflexivity in biological and AI systems.🤖🧠👩🔬🧪
http://susannaschellenberg.org
Pinned
Discussion with Susanna Schellenberg -Consciousness Live! S8 e5
YouTube video by onemorebrown
www.youtube.com
Enjoyed this interview with @onemorebrown.bsky.social. We discuss #perception, #AI, #perspectives, #capacities, @neddo.bsky.social, #Fodor, #Chomsky, the performance/competences distinction, the relation between capacities and representational states, and much else. www.youtube.com/live/-kzah5Z...
Reposted by Susanna Schellenberg
Pleased to share new work with @sflippl.bsky.social @eberleoliver.bsky.social @thomasmcgee.bsky.social & undergrad interns at Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics, UCLA.
Algorithmic Primitives and Compositional Geometry of Reasoning in Language Models
www.arxiv.org/pdf/2510.15987
🧵1/n
Algorithmic Primitives and Compositional Geometry of Reasoning in Language Models
www.arxiv.org/pdf/2510.15987
🧵1/n
October 27, 2025 at 6:13 PM
Pleased to share new work with @sflippl.bsky.social @eberleoliver.bsky.social @thomasmcgee.bsky.social & undergrad interns at Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics, UCLA.
Algorithmic Primitives and Compositional Geometry of Reasoning in Language Models
www.arxiv.org/pdf/2510.15987
🧵1/n
Algorithmic Primitives and Compositional Geometry of Reasoning in Language Models
www.arxiv.org/pdf/2510.15987
🧵1/n
Reposted by Susanna Schellenberg
Sea urchins are mostly brains in a spiky shell? Soo cool! 🤯
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Single-nucleus profiling highlights the all-brain echinoderm nervous system
A sea urchin is a head with a brain-like organization and a vertebrate-type retinal signature.
www.science.org
November 13, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Sea urchins are mostly brains in a spiky shell? Soo cool! 🤯
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Susanna Schellenberg
Open-weight models are becoming increasingly capable while creating risks beyond those that already exist for closed-weight models.
To continue benefiting from the advantages of open-weight models, we must develop risk mitigation methodologies specifically for them, as discussed in this paper.
To continue benefiting from the advantages of open-weight models, we must develop risk mitigation methodologies specifically for them, as discussed in this paper.
🚨New paper🚨
From a technical perspective, safeguarding open-weight model safety is AI safety in hard mode. But there's still a lot of progress to be made. Our new paper covers 16 open problems.
🧵🧵🧵
From a technical perspective, safeguarding open-weight model safety is AI safety in hard mode. But there's still a lot of progress to be made. Our new paper covers 16 open problems.
🧵🧵🧵
November 12, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Open-weight models are becoming increasingly capable while creating risks beyond those that already exist for closed-weight models.
To continue benefiting from the advantages of open-weight models, we must develop risk mitigation methodologies specifically for them, as discussed in this paper.
To continue benefiting from the advantages of open-weight models, we must develop risk mitigation methodologies specifically for them, as discussed in this paper.
Since my interview with Richard Brown abruptly ended after an hour, we did another one. This one is less free-floating than the first and includes a lot of discussion of representation, content, and the like. As someone in the chat commented dryly, “Endless discussions about semantics”.
This was a lot of fun! Thanks again for the great conversation, and I hope you enjoyed the second half as well!
youtube.com/live/_8gvUo_...
youtube.com/live/_8gvUo_...
Further Discussion with Susanna Schellenberg -Consciousness Live! s8 e5.5
YouTube video by onemorebrown
youtube.com
November 12, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Since my interview with Richard Brown abruptly ended after an hour, we did another one. This one is less free-floating than the first and includes a lot of discussion of representation, content, and the like. As someone in the chat commented dryly, “Endless discussions about semantics”.
Enjoyed this interview with @onemorebrown.bsky.social. We discuss #perception, #AI, #perspectives, #capacities, @neddo.bsky.social, #Fodor, #Chomsky, the performance/competences distinction, the relation between capacities and representational states, and much else. www.youtube.com/live/-kzah5Z...
Discussion with Susanna Schellenberg -Consciousness Live! S8 e5
YouTube video by onemorebrown
www.youtube.com
November 11, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Enjoyed this interview with @onemorebrown.bsky.social. We discuss #perception, #AI, #perspectives, #capacities, @neddo.bsky.social, #Fodor, #Chomsky, the performance/competences distinction, the relation between capacities and representational states, and much else. www.youtube.com/live/-kzah5Z...
Reposted by Susanna Schellenberg
Next up on Consciousness Live! -Susanna Schellenberg later today at 2 pm!
youtube.com/live/-kzah5Z...
youtube.com/live/-kzah5Z...
Discussion with Susanna Schellenberg
YouTube video by onemorebrown
youtube.com
October 31, 2025 at 10:08 AM
Next up on Consciousness Live! -Susanna Schellenberg later today at 2 pm!
youtube.com/live/-kzah5Z...
youtube.com/live/-kzah5Z...
About to do a live podcast. Wish me luck. youtube.com/live/-kzah5Z...
Discussion with Susanna Schellenberg
YouTube video by onemorebrown
youtube.com
October 31, 2025 at 6:04 PM
About to do a live podcast. Wish me luck. youtube.com/live/-kzah5Z...
Congratulations to Jordan Scott for defending what was allegedly just one dissertation, but in fact was two: one in the philosophy of race, and one in epistemology. He is now off to Oxford for a three-year postdoc, and will be much missed here at Rutgers.
September 15, 2025 at 11:17 PM
Congratulations to Jordan Scott for defending what was allegedly just one dissertation, but in fact was two: one in the philosophy of race, and one in epistemology. He is now off to Oxford for a three-year postdoc, and will be much missed here at Rutgers.
From Kafka's diaries. The struggle is real.
August 6, 2025 at 2:02 PM
From Kafka's diaries. The struggle is real.
CFP for a special volume in Topoi on Capacities-First Philosophy. link.springer.com/collections/...
Capacities-first Philosophy
Paper submissions are invited for the special issue/collection of Topoi entitled: CAPACITIES-FIRST PHILOSOPHY. This special issue aims to analyze various ...
link.springer.com
July 23, 2025 at 1:24 PM
CFP for a special volume in Topoi on Capacities-First Philosophy. link.springer.com/collections/...
Congratulations to Mazviita Chirimuuta for winning the 2025 Lakatos Award for her book “The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience”.
June 25, 2025 at 7:35 PM
Congratulations to Mazviita Chirimuuta for winning the 2025 Lakatos Award for her book “The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience”.
It’s like watching a couple who waited too long to get divorced.
June 5, 2025 at 9:00 PM
It’s like watching a couple who waited too long to get divorced.
Reposted by Susanna Schellenberg
It's an interesting phenomenon that some of the deepest questions about how life works have become what looks like impossibly obscure molecular biology stuck right at the back of Nature, which will never get covered by the science media. Like this. /1
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
DNA-guided transcription factor interactions extend human gene regulatory code - Nature
A large-scale analysis of DNA-bound transcription factors (TFs) shows how the presence of DNA markedly affects the landscape of TF interactions, and identifies composite motifs that are recognized by ...
www.nature.com
May 31, 2025 at 6:06 PM
It's an interesting phenomenon that some of the deepest questions about how life works have become what looks like impossibly obscure molecular biology stuck right at the back of Nature, which will never get covered by the science media. Like this. /1
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
(via Bernard Kobes)
May 15, 2025 at 1:03 PM
(via Bernard Kobes)
Reposted by Susanna Schellenberg
oh wow wow wow. Wow.
It's officially out, after many years:
"Loopholes: A window into value alignment and the communication of meaning"
authors.elsevier.com/c/1k~vV_Ebvv...
Read on for a brief summary, but I encourage you to read the thing itself.
It's officially out, after many years:
"Loopholes: A window into value alignment and the communication of meaning"
authors.elsevier.com/c/1k~vV_Ebvv...
Read on for a brief summary, but I encourage you to read the thing itself.
April 29, 2025 at 1:15 PM
oh wow wow wow. Wow.
It's officially out, after many years:
"Loopholes: A window into value alignment and the communication of meaning"
authors.elsevier.com/c/1k~vV_Ebvv...
Read on for a brief summary, but I encourage you to read the thing itself.
It's officially out, after many years:
"Loopholes: A window into value alignment and the communication of meaning"
authors.elsevier.com/c/1k~vV_Ebvv...
Read on for a brief summary, but I encourage you to read the thing itself.
Reposted by Susanna Schellenberg
Pleased this is out. 🙂 academic.oup.com/aristotelian...
The paper argues that there is an overlooked distinction in relational ethics regarding the ground of relational moral demands.
The paper argues that there is an overlooked distinction in relational ethics regarding the ground of relational moral demands.
Relational Moral Demands
Abstract. Relational moral theories hold that at least some moral demands are grounded in a relation between individuals. But how should this relation be u
academic.oup.com
April 7, 2025 at 6:59 PM
Pleased this is out. 🙂 academic.oup.com/aristotelian...
The paper argues that there is an overlooked distinction in relational ethics regarding the ground of relational moral demands.
The paper argues that there is an overlooked distinction in relational ethics regarding the ground of relational moral demands.
Reposted by Susanna Schellenberg
My Neural Mechanisms Online talk 'Neural representations are (still) theoretical posits' takes place on Monday April 28th - 7am for me, more civilized hours for most of the rest of you! Responses from Gualtiero Piccinini and Edouard Machery.
www.neuralmechanisms.org/webinarserie...
www.neuralmechanisms.org/webinarserie...
April 23, 2025 at 8:28 PM
My Neural Mechanisms Online talk 'Neural representations are (still) theoretical posits' takes place on Monday April 28th - 7am for me, more civilized hours for most of the rest of you! Responses from Gualtiero Piccinini and Edouard Machery.
www.neuralmechanisms.org/webinarserie...
www.neuralmechanisms.org/webinarserie...
Reposted by Susanna Schellenberg
Yay Harvard!!!!!!! Well done! Other universities should do the same.
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/u...
Harvard Will Not Comply With a List of Trump Administration Demands
Federal officials said Harvard must enact “merit-based reform” in hiring and admissions, among other things. Harvard called the demands unlawful.
www.nytimes.com
April 14, 2025 at 6:48 PM
Yay Harvard!!!!!!! Well done! Other universities should do the same.
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/u...
Reposted by Susanna Schellenberg
The line between brains and computer chips just got blurrier. Everyday chips made to work like neurons with a simple modification. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Synaptic and neural behaviours in a standard silicon transistor - Nature
A standard commercial CMOS FET can exhibit synaptic-like long-term potentiation and depression or neuron-like leaky-integrate-and-fire and adaptive frequency-bursting behaviour when biased in a specif...
www.nature.com
April 5, 2025 at 5:03 PM
The line between brains and computer chips just got blurrier. Everyday chips made to work like neurons with a simple modification. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Susanna Schellenberg
𝗕𝗲𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗺: 𝗲𝘅𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲
Neuroscience & Philosophy Salon: Join our discussion with @wiringthebrain.bsky.social
Apr 11 at noon EST USA time.
Here's the paper to get the discussion going:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Everyone welcome but register ->
Neuroscience & Philosophy Salon: Join our discussion with @wiringthebrain.bsky.social
Apr 11 at noon EST USA time.
Here's the paper to get the discussion going:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Everyone welcome but register ->
Beyond Mechanism—Extending Our Concepts of Causation in Neuroscience
The search for neural mechanisms of behaviour often relies on a synchronic, driving view of causation, where neural activity drives more neural activity, which eventually drives behaviour. The real c....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
April 6, 2025 at 4:03 PM
𝗕𝗲𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗺: 𝗲𝘅𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲
Neuroscience & Philosophy Salon: Join our discussion with @wiringthebrain.bsky.social
Apr 11 at noon EST USA time.
Here's the paper to get the discussion going:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Everyone welcome but register ->
Neuroscience & Philosophy Salon: Join our discussion with @wiringthebrain.bsky.social
Apr 11 at noon EST USA time.
Here's the paper to get the discussion going:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Everyone welcome but register ->
Reposted by Susanna Schellenberg
Eva Dyer and I wrote an opinion piece for @thetransmitter.bsky.social on why neuroscience needs to embrace complexity and accept the "bitter lesson" by using a data-driven regime at scale.
With commentary from several wonderful researchers!
🧠📈 #NeuroAI 🧪
With commentary from several wonderful researchers!
🧠📈 #NeuroAI 🧪
How can we make progress in developing a general model of neural computation rather than a series of disjointed models tied to specific experimental circumstances, ask Eva Dyer and @tyrellturing.bsky.social in the latest entry in our NeuroAI series.
www.thetransmitter.org/neuroai/acce...
www.thetransmitter.org/neuroai/acce...
Accepting “bitter lesson” and embracing brain’s complexity
To gain insight into complex neural data, we must move toward a data-driven regime, employing large models trained on vast amounts of data. Experts weigh in.
www.thetransmitter.org
March 26, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Eva Dyer and I wrote an opinion piece for @thetransmitter.bsky.social on why neuroscience needs to embrace complexity and accept the "bitter lesson" by using a data-driven regime at scale.
With commentary from several wonderful researchers!
🧠📈 #NeuroAI 🧪
With commentary from several wonderful researchers!
🧠📈 #NeuroAI 🧪
Reposted by Susanna Schellenberg
Looking for an exciting fellowship in AI & Neuro, with competitive salary (~£100k)? We got a new position in the lab at Oxford, working with @somnirons.bsky.social and me! 🧪
Our project: encode.pillar.vc/projects/beh...
General info: encode.pillar.vc
#compneuro #neuroai #neuroscience #sciencejobs
Our project: encode.pillar.vc/projects/beh...
General info: encode.pillar.vc
#compneuro #neuroai #neuroscience #sciencejobs
ARIA Opportunity Space: Scalable Neural Interfaces
encode.pillar.vc
March 23, 2025 at 7:45 PM
Looking for an exciting fellowship in AI & Neuro, with competitive salary (~£100k)? We got a new position in the lab at Oxford, working with @somnirons.bsky.social and me! 🧪
Our project: encode.pillar.vc/projects/beh...
General info: encode.pillar.vc
#compneuro #neuroai #neuroscience #sciencejobs
Our project: encode.pillar.vc/projects/beh...
General info: encode.pillar.vc
#compneuro #neuroai #neuroscience #sciencejobs