Alexey Tolchinsky
tolchinsky.bsky.social
Alexey Tolchinsky
@tolchinsky.bsky.social
Clinical psychologist and researcher investigating anxiety disorders, Acute PTSD, dissociations, OCD, Affective Neuroscience, neuropsychoanalysis, application of nonlinear dynamical systems to psychology

https://montgomerycountypsychologist.com
Pinned
Our paper is published. Co-authored with @drmichaellevin.bsky.social , Chris Fields, @lancelotdacosta.bsky.social ta.bsky.social, Daniel Friedman, Rachael Murphy, David Pincus

www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy...

this work presents a computational model of dissociations
Bluesky
ta.bsky.social
When you get a younger body, does you mental age change?

A conversation with @drmichaellevin.bsky.social and Thomas Pollak. We also talked about cancesusceptibility/resilience, brainwashing, regenerative medicine and other topics

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg8u...
Discussion with Alexey Tolchinsky and Thomas Pollak 2
YouTube video by Michael Levin's Academic Content
www.youtube.com
November 22, 2025 at 2:14 PM
RIP Paul Ekman
November 20, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Any cosmologists here?

My friend Cedric Dominguez wrote a paper

www.researchgate.net/publication/...

I hope you read it and comment. He is very kind and friendly.

#physics
#cosmology
(PDF) The ΦCDM-ESE-AIE-ESI Model: An Information-Entropy Driven Extension of ΛCDM Cosmology Relation to Existing Approaches
PDF | We introduce the ΦCDM-ESE-AIE-ESI cosmological model, a fal-sifiable extension of ΛCDM in which the cosmological term, gravity, and spacetime... | Find, read and cite all the research you need o...
www.researchgate.net
November 13, 2025 at 9:09 PM
When you are on an exponential curve
quote from @anilseth.bsky.social

from www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzvs...
Anil Seth, Can AI Be Conscious? | Natural Philosophy Symposium 2025
YouTube video by Hopkins Natural Philosophy Forum
www.youtube.com
November 13, 2025 at 12:22 AM
A problem of certainty in LLM answers.

Gary Marcus & Karl Friston make an important point. In science and in life, the answer to many questions is probabilistic. In psychology (psychometrics) we talk about confidence intervals
November 13, 2025 at 12:11 AM
Reposted by Alexey Tolchinsky
New preprint:

arxiv.org/abs/2510.19976

"Morphological computational capacity of Physarum polycephalum"

Suyash Bajpai, Aviva Lucas-DeMott, @msahsorin.bsky.social, Philip Kurian
Morphological computational capacity of Physarum polycephalum
While computational capacity limits of the universe and carbon-based life have been estimated, a stricter bound for aneural organisms has not been established. Physarum polycephalum, a unicellular, mu...
arxiv.org
November 10, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Reposted by Alexey Tolchinsky
"Cognition all the way down". Great to see this fine new paper from @robertchisciure.bsky.social & @drmichaellevin.bsky.social out now in Synthese - introducing a new metric to quantify biological intelligence as search efficiency in multidimensional problem spaces link.springer.com/article/10.1...
November 10, 2025 at 2:46 PM
Reposted by Alexey Tolchinsky
Reposted by Alexey Tolchinsky
new paper with @robertchisciure.bsky.social

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

"Cognition all the way down 2.0: neuroscience beyond neurons in the diverse intelligence era"

🧪
Cognition all the way down 2.0: neuroscience beyond neurons in the diverse intelligence era - Synthese
This paper formalizes biological intelligence as search efficiency in multi-scale problem spaces, aiming to resolve epistemic deadlocks in the basal “cognition wars” unfolding in the Diverse Intellige...
link.springer.com
November 7, 2025 at 12:31 AM
about 25% of patients in a PVS (Persistent Vegetative State) are conscious. I recall reading about the devices to measure that in @standehaene.bsky.social's book (GWS based). Christof Koch also worked on that and provided the statistics.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GjW...
Christof Koch x Bernardo Kastrup | Can AI Be Conscious? A Neuroscientist & A Philosopher Discuss
YouTube video by Accelerator Media
www.youtube.com
November 6, 2025 at 12:14 AM
Reposted by Alexey Tolchinsky
A new permanent R&T position at Lecturer level was just advertised at my favourite department @rhulpsychology.bsky.social (yes, I am biased but for very good reasons). Consider applying if you are looking for an academic home. And please spread the word !
November 4, 2025 at 2:22 PM
Important paper in Lancet on SSRIs documenting the effects on weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, liver functioning.

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
The effects of antidepressants on cardiometabolic and other physiological parameters: a systematic review and network meta-analysis
We found strong evidence that antidepressants differ markedly in their physiological effects, particularly for cardiometabolic parameters. Treatment guidelines should be updated to reflect differences...
www.thelancet.com
November 4, 2025 at 4:12 PM
a bit of reality about the much-advertised hip&cool, earth-shattering, mind-blowing... rebranding of psychoanalysis (and a simplification of it) presented as something brand-new.

www.thecut.com/article/trut...
The Truth About IFS, the Therapy That Can Break You
Internal Family Systems is a widely popular trauma treatment. Some patients say it’s destroyed their lives.
www.thecut.com
November 2, 2025 at 2:27 PM
@anilseth.bsky.social Talks about this vibe of inevitability people have when talking about AI becoming human-like. Is it inevitable? The future is not written. We can decide where to go. Wise he is.
November 1, 2025 at 8:17 PM
very interesting presentation by @laurennross.bsky.social. I agree with the question asked at 57 minutes; @chrisfields38.bsky.social will correct me if I'm wrong. The entire presentation talks about classical, not quantum physics.
November 1, 2025 at 11:55 AM
@laurennross.bsky.social reminds us of an important distinction between predictions/descriptions/classifications and a scientific explanation. Being able to predict something reliably does not mean we can explain it. Her example - bull's eye rash predicts Lyme, but does not explain it. "
October 31, 2025 at 1:35 PM
useful lesson from Feynman.
Learning (tools of deeper understanding) - Simplify, Teach, Review, Play, and turn mistakes into tools.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPMJ...
How to Force YOUR MIND to LEARN ANYTHING you WANT | Feynman's SECRET
YouTube video by Feynman's Mind
www.youtube.com
October 30, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Embodiment and life

Citations from @anilseth.bsky.social:

"We perceive the world around us, and ourselves within in, with, through, and because of our living bodies."

"It might be life, not information processing that breathes fire into the equations of consciousness."
October 30, 2025 at 11:26 AM
There is a divergence of opinions on substrate neutrality. In @drmichaellevin.bsky.social TAME work, material-independence is vital (for a model of the mind), in @anilseth.bsky.social's view "whatever brains do [function], it is unlikely to be substance neutral"
October 29, 2025 at 1:34 PM
@anilseth.bsky.social said in a recent presentation:

"What we have in real brains are things where there's a great integration across scales of description, we don't have a clean separation between wetware and mindware"

True that :-)
October 29, 2025 at 10:13 AM