iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Interesting #HomeBody experiment. But using a body to act in the world & making sense through embodied interaction with the world are not quite the same thing. If the body is mainly an interface for already acquired competencies, can we really call this a “transfer of mind”? youtu.be/TVeGoNoBiEM?...

youtu.be

First look: HomeBody: A Humanoid That Explores, Remembers... by Stanford, Caltech (Sep/2026)

YouTube video by Dr Alan D. Thompson

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Aeon Magazine @aeon.co · 28/09/2026

‘Affects are the intensities that move us’. This provocative video examines the ‘affective turn’ in the humanities, exploring the interplay of physicality, emotion and identity buff.ly/hTyVmJ9

buff.ly

Beyond the mind-body divide – on the ‘affective turn’ in the humanities | Aeon Videos

In the mid-1990s, thinkers pushed back against the idea we’re built by language, turning to feeling and the body instead

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Interesting moment in Villalobos & Cea (2026): the historical dominance of neural “difference-makers” in #consciousness studies may partly reflect methodological and theoretical limitations in studying brain–body interdependencie. And it raises a question for me ⬇️ link.springer.com/article/10.1...

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

After my vacation in Maine, I decided to start running around the neighborhood again to stay in shape and clear my head a bit from my dissertation. And today, during my run, I caught a sunset like this

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I find this an interesting attempt to bring the Advaita Vedānta practice of self-inquiry into #neurophenomenology as a scientifically investigable first-person method. However, it raises another question: ⬇️ www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy...

frontiersin.org

Frontiers | Who am I? Self-inquiry as a neurophenomenological approach to consciousness

Inconclusive evidence for leading third-person theories of consciousness has renewed scientific interest in its first-person nature. Self-inquiry, a first-pe...

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Anne Fausto-Sterling @birdlady.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Study finds sharp decline in Black, Hispanic researchers receiving NIH funding Drop in those receiving grants and fellowships in 2025 shows impact of Trump administration rollbacks to diversity initiatives www.science.org/content/arti...

science.org

Study finds sharp decline in Black, Hispanic researchers receiving NIH funding

Drop in those receiving grants and fellowships in 2025 shows impact of Trump administration rollbacks to diversity initiatives

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Anil Seth @anilseth.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

4/ The original target article, "Conscious artificial intelligence and biological naturalism" is available here: cambridge.org/core/journal...

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

This week I attended @claudiapassos.bsky.social Claudia Passos-Ferreira’s “Tests for Consciousness in Infants”. Fascinating discussion: 75% of surveyed experts think newborns are conscious, and some place its emergence before birth. When does human #consciousness begin and how can we test for it?

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Saw Akram Khan’s Vertical Road at Boston Ballet yesterday. A remarkable meeting of Kathak, contemporary dance, and ritual movement at times almost cinematic, yet always grounded in the body. One poetic language of movement. 🔥

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Reading this, I wonder: what might findings like these eventually mean for how we think about #consciousness and what it means to be human? If human cortical cells can develop and function within another organism, how should we think about the relations between brain, body, and environment?

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Wow. I took this quiz and honestly didn’t expect Sweden’s #migration rules to feel this harsh. Some of it felt uncomfortably familiar from the U.S. immigration system. val2026.centerpartiet.se/quiz-blir-du...

val2026.centerpartiet.se

Quiz - blir du utvisad? - Centerpartiet

Blir du utvisad? Gör testet nu! Tio verkliga scenarier, byggda på dagens migrationsregler. Läs och gissa vad som faktiskt händer.

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Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

The US is facing a mass exodus of scientists The funding cuts & attacks on science are demoralizing a generation of brilliant minds One-third of young scientists who were planning careers in academic research changed their minds in 2025 and many now plan to leave www.nber.org/system/files...

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Today I had an appointment at the Harvard Dental Center student practice and left feeling objectified, less like a patient seeking help, and more like a teaching case whose needs were secondary to the students’ training. Very different from my experience at a student dental clinic in San Francisco

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Our vacation has come to an end, and we finished it the same way we started: with a visit to a historic house museum :) This time it was Victoria Mansion in Portland, Maine, built in 1858 for a wealthy couple from New Orleans, Louisiana.

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Today my partner showed me the Fort Popham, built in 1861, where he used to play with his cousins when he was a little boy, around 6–8 years old. We had a lovely walk to the fort and I listened to stories from his childhood. Such a peaceful, relaxing day in a beautiful and meaningful place.

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Mind & Life Europe @mindandlifeeu.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Today we celebrate the 80th anniversary of the birthday of Francisco Varela (September 7, 1946 – May 28, 2001), who remains one of the most visionary and influential figures in the history of cognitive science having transformed how we think about consciousness, life, and experience.

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Fantasy & sci-fi often offer unique metaphors for experiencing the scientific concepts I study (consciousness, embodiment, agency, selfhood). Stephen R. Donaldson’s Mordant’s Need unexpectedly became one of those books for me: #consciousness explored through mirrors, bodies, and relations. 🪞

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Today my boyfriend and I walked out to the island during an incredibly low tide at Popham Beach State Park in Maine. It was absolutely beautiful. I love moments like this.

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

My patner’ relatives rented a cottage for a week near Popham Beach State Park in southern Maine and invited us to spend a few days with them. It’s so quiet and beautiful here. I haven’t enjoyed sunrises and sunsets this much since we lived near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

I’ve never seen a double 🌈 rainbow and such a bright, complete arc! Wow 😮

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Today I finally visited Orgonon, Wilhelm Reich’s museum in Maine. I was especially interested in his laboratory and art studio. The place has a very unique atmosphere, much like the life of its creator: a physician, psychoanalyst, political radical, artist, and deeply controversial thinker.

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I love Michael Whelan’s #art. There is always something in it about liminality and infinity, and philosophical questions about connection, consciousness, and the relations between different beings and worlds. #Whelan calls his style “Imaginative Realism.” www.michaelwhelan.com

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Researchers at Université de Montréal are conducting a worldwide study on how people across disciplines and cultures understand #consciousness. I took the survey and really enjoyed how its thought experiments helped clarify my own beliefs. www.whatisconsciousness.io

whatisconsciousness.io

What Is Consciousness? – Defining Consciousness: A global research survey

A worldwide study on how people across disciplines and cultures define consciousness. Anonymous, 10–20 minutes, open to anyone over 18.

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I think the NYC mayor’s order restricting #AI use in public schools is not simply about technology. It also may be a resistance against the privatization of cognition and a struggle over who, and what, gets to mediate the relationship between children and education. www.nyc.gov/mayors-offic...

nyc.gov

Mayor Mamdani and Chancellor Samuels Put Students First with Nation’s Broadest Generative AI Moratorium in Schools

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Interesting structural resonance: Paul Ekman’s “emotional episode timeline” looks surprisingly similar to the diachronic structures reconstructed in #micro-phenomenological analysis: phases, transitions, bodily/perceptual changes, and an unfolding trajectory of experience. Not the same method

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Unfortunately, due to the continuing uncertainty around my U.S. naturalization process and the resulting travel restrictions, I’ve had to withdraw from MoC7. I’m very disappointed, but I’m grateful to @moc7.bsky.social for accepting my work and for their understanding.

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

At the beginning, I worried that having only 5 cases might be too small. Now I’m doing multimodal analysis across semi-structured and micro-phenomenological interviews, body maps (narrative, embodied, paralinguistic, visual data) & this dataset feels anything but small. OMG 😆 Help me survive :))

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Last Sunday, I was invited to see Derrick Adams: View Master at ICA Boston, an exhibition celebrating Black life through everyday beauty, freedom, resilience and joy. It was also a meaningful encounter between Black American and #queer communities and their intersections. #derrickadams #black #art

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Today, two #intersex people from two countries asked me about intimacy, relationships, bodies, and hormones. It reminded me how few safe spaces exist for these conversations. Maybe it’s time to bring back 30–45-minute peer consultations grounded in experience and research? 🤔

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

I finally watched #Westworld series. I think the 1 season would be enough. 1st season already feels complete: the loop was the material from which the maze & self #consciousness could emerge. In the later seasons, the maze itself gradually closing into a loop and free will becomes determination

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Aeon Magazine @aeon.co · 20/08/2026

In this exquisitely crafted meeting of words and images, the theoretical physicist and feminist theorist Karen Barad muses on the nature of touch buff.ly/fBySfpB

aeon.co

‘Repulsion, at the core of attraction’ – on the paradox of touch | Aeon Videos

A mesmerising blend of words and images make touch a doorway into the deepest questions in physics and philosophy

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

And still, so many Americans believe that refugees don’t pay taxes… I'm thinking more and more that many citizens of this “country of immigrants” have no idea what it actually means to be an immigrant here, or perhaps they simply don’t care.

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Tennent & Henderson’ paper on participant recruitment in #psychology made me think about my own data. One participant valued having a space to speak about being both #intersex and #immigrant; for another, migration was a biographical fact rather than a remembered. psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

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Anna Ciaunica PhD @annaciaunica.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

ve been recently interviewed in @newscientist on conscious experiences in early life ontological embodied existence emerges in deep connection with another embodied person Hence our first thought may be : I am not alone ! @thomaslewton.bsky.social 🙏 www.newscientist.com/article/2527...

newscientist.com

Our brains have their first thoughts unexpectedly early in life | New Scientist

By the time we’re born, our brains have all the hardware in place to form thoughts, and possibly even some conscious awareness

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Reading Monica Luci’s new paper, I was taken by the idea that political-material environments can shape experience before we consciously interpret them. Spatial arrangements, bodily positioning, thresholds, and material boundaries can “structure perception before interpretation.” #pre-reflective

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

In his article Ludwig argues that #consciousness studies has underestimated how much the structure of experience may differ even across individuals and that such differences may help explain tensions between competing research models. Pluralistic theory psycnet.apa.org/record/2028-...

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

1/2 This article is a clear example of how #care becomes #biopolitics in the classification of #Klinefelter and #Turner sex variations: a threatened medical intervention is "protected" by relocating these bodies within normative male/female biology. #intersex #ivsc #normativity

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SQIP @qualpsy.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Walking in Boston today and met elephants on Commonwealth Avenue from India 🇮🇳 with love 💗🐘 100 life-sized elephant sculptures from The Great Elephant Migration. Each one was handcrafted by Indigenous artisans in India using stems of Lantana camara, an invasive plant.

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

American Dream became a myth that poisoned many different lives. As soon as I hear or read about it, I think of illusions, propaganda, disappointment, struggle, and broken lives. What interests me more is whether it ever really worked or whether it was always just a piece of cheese in a mousetrap.

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

When does a laboratory finding become a “sex variation”? Who decides when it is clinically relevant? Should parents be told about an incidental XXY finding if the child is healthy? And why call XXY a “disorder” rather than a chromosomal variation? #infant #vsc nensp.umassmed.edu/screening-pr...

nensp.umassmed.edu

Required Disorders

Your baby will be screened for laboratory markers of the following 35 disorders, which are listed alphabetically:

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Blues Come Through by Alice Dalton Brown #art

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British Society for Phenomenology @thebsp.org.uk · 11/08/2026

Federico Carlassara - The Emergence of Psychology as a Human Science of Experience. A Phenomenological Proposal BSP Research Seminar 2026 - Session 1 Free | Online | Thursday 27 August Find out more: www.thebsp.org.uk/2026/08/11/f... #Phenomenology #Philosophy

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

I was born in southern Siberia, more than 3,000 km from the Pacific Ocean. I first saw the sea in my twenties, when I moved to Vladivostok. Since then, I’ve loved watching the waves, smelling the sea breeze, and living close to the coast. I can hardly imagine living deep inland again.

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The Psychologist @psychmag.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Embodiment Science: Learning at the heart of real-world intelligence. Guy Claxton and Emily Poel on themes from their new book. www.bps.org.uk/psychologist...

bps.org.uk

Embodiment Science: Learning at the heart of real-world intelligence | BPS

Guy Claxton and Emily Poel on themes from their new book.

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Thank you @moc7.bsky.social! My proposal, “Embodied Variation and Models of Consciousness: An Epistemological Inquiry,” was accepted as a poster at #MoC7 I’ll explore how IVSC embodied variation may serve as an epistemological resource for #consciousness amcs-community.org/events/moc7-...

amcs-community.org

Models of Consciousness 2026 – AMCS

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Alexander Berezkin @birchalexander.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

“What this means is, social workers across the country will be at significant and needless risk of losing access to adequate federal student loans and pretty much won’t have the possibility to finance their schooling,” #education www.wpr.org/news/trump-a...

wpr.org

Trump administration cutting federal loans for low-paying degrees

A new Department of Education rule will cut off federal student loans for college programs whose graduates consistently earn low incomes.

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