iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I kinda get why people hate on fussy philosophical stuff, but on the other hand don't you think we live in a time where it'd be especially helpful to have rigorous conversations about things like personhood, meaning in life, the point of art, the point of pure mathematics, & operationalizing ethics?

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I find it frustrating how philosophy journals include references in the word count. It encourages omitting all but essential citations, and reduces the citation rate for everyone in the field. Also, to everyone I didn't cite -- you were probably in the earlier draft!

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I don't care what distance measure you use -- EIEIO is a terrible approximation of "farm".

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Briefly popping my head back in to unveil the cover of my upcoming book, LIFE BEYOND MEASURE: Nature's Hidden Wonders at Every Scale. It’ll be out on April 6 in the U.S. and April 29 in the U.K. and you can pre-order it right now! www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/757705... 1/

A book cover featuring a beautiful closely cropped portrait of an Anna's hummingbird. The cover says LIFE BEYOND MEASURE: Nature's Hidden Wonders at Every Scale, by Ed Yong. The image also says US: 4/06/27 and UK: 4/29/27

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Last night I saw Leslie Liao at The Port, in Baltimore, and she's quickly becoming one of my favorite up-and-coming comedians. Underlying her set was a tension between a desire for intimacy and the physical joy of being unobserved that seems to be especiallly pressing for millenials. portcomedy.com

portcomedy.com

Port Comedy Club – The Port Comedy Club in Baltimore, MD.

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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 09/09/2026

Astrophotographer Adam (AJ) Smadi caught this image a few hours ago from Washington state. A thin crescent Moon, sunlight illuminating the rugged lunar surface. And 2,400 times farther away—and on the other side of the Sun—mighty Jupiter, and its moons Io (left) and Ganymede (right).

A crescent Moon seen during the day, arcing from upper left to lower right of the frame. At lower centre is the full disk of Jupiter; the small dots to its upper left and lower right and Io and Ganymede, respectively.

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

My book diet has come to include memoirs that are not quite self-help books, but that tend a bit in that direction. About 100% of them at some point discuss Kafka in detail. I wonder if his centrality has risen recently, as he’s been glommed onto by anyone thinking about shame, writer’s block, etc.

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

My invited ICML talk "Evaluating Surrogate Metrics Under Optimization Pressure: A Causal Perspective" is online. I use dynamic causal models and control feedback theory to disentangle types of AI trustworthiness, and illuminate policy failures involving Goodhart's Law. icml.cc/virtual/2026...

icml.cc

ICML Surrogate Metric Evaluation is a Causal Inference ProblemICML 2026

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Check out my newest attempt to help people understand causal mediation. This one covers just the direct effect (indirect effects are next episode) since if people truly understood the difference between CDEs and NDEs that would already clear up considerable confusion. youtu.be/gl5-HRCUfw0?...

youtu.be

E12: Understanding Direct Effects

YouTube video by Causal Foundations

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Guy just now: what day is today? Wednesday, Thursday? Me: it’s Friday Guy: what time you got? Me: it’s a few minutes after 9 Guy: so, like 9:10? Me: 9:04 I feel like the level of desired precision really escalated quickly. I hope he’s not late for something!

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

youtu.be

E12: Understanding Direct Effects

YouTube video by Causal Foundations

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Five years from now, when more people have internalized that the limits of language are the limits of LLMs, will they turn to analytic or continental philosophy? And who can better help?

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Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 20/07/2026

New paper out now 🥳 When psychologists discuss generalisability, they often refer to vague notions of representativeness. We provide an accessible intro to the total survey error framework as a tool to reason about this more rigorously. w @taymalsalti.bsky.social @ruben.the100.ci >

Thinking Clearly About Sampling and Representation With the Total Survey Error Framework

Collecting a sample that represents the population of interest well constitutes a challenge across the social and behavioural sciences. Psychology in particular frequently relies on convenience samples—most notably students and, increasingly, online participants—with a tendency to either (implicitly) assume representativeness without substantive justification, or to acknowledge a lack of it only in passing. In contrast, researchers rarely engage with the actual implications for their inferences, which undermines the generalisability of psychological findings. Critically, representativeness must be defined with respect to variables relevant to the target of inference, rather than superficial demographic diversity. Here we present the Total Survey Error (TSE) framework as a methodological tool that systematically addresses the multifaceted sources of error—particularly those related to representation—that emerge throughout the research cycle. Although TSE originated in survey research, its principles are broadly applicable to any psychological study seeking inference from sample to population. We offer practical strategies for identifying, preventing, and mitigating representation errors to improve the credibility and generalisability of psychological research.

Illustration of the total survey error framework with the representation strand highlighted. It shows how coverage error, sampling error and non-response error arise during the sampling process.

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Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 03/07/2026

Don't forget to remind the Stephen Miller types that tomorrow is Independence Day, not Independent and Identically Distributed day.

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Who else here is going to be at ICML in Seoul and might be up for talking causal? (Also feel free to plug your talk in the comments!) Info on my talk/workshop is here: sites.google.com/view/philmli...

sites.google.com

PhilML@ICML26

Workshop Description

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

RIP Robert Thurman. Back when I took his Indo-Tibetan Buddhism course at Columbia, my roomate Ben Stern did an epic remix of one of this recorded lectures. drive.google.com/file/d/1v7iL... www.nytimes.com/2026/06/17/u...

drive.google.com

21 Intergalactic.mp3

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

No ChatGPT, I don't need you to tell me that I'm influenced by Herbert Simon :).

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

What are the implications of the fact that social media hooked us by making us anxious and depressed, while LLMs seem optimized to make us over-confident and manic? Any good discussions of this?

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

If you've been thinking of reading @add-hawk.bsky.social's the score, go ahead and do so. It's an extremely pleasurable read, without a wasted page. I'd like to consider one (AI-related) nuance that perhaps gets lost in his discussion of objectivity... www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/735252...

penguinrandomhouse.com

The Score by C. Thi Nguyen: 9780593655658 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

“Mind-expanding . . . The Score is so exuberant and readable that the depth and seriousness of its insights almost sneak up on you.” —Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times “Brilliant...

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Selected papers: Homeostasis: tinyurl.com/342rmsth Discrimination: tinyurl.com/yscv658e Timescale: tinyurl.com/2rpj7874 DCMs: tinyurl.com/2s3p2wuh Mediation: tinyurl.com/3hz3rca8 Faithfulness: tinyurl.com/3n3de87m Causation and Time: tinyurl.com/58cfcw2r Psychometrics: tinyurl.com/ynjaf5xv

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Huw Price @huwprice.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Try it again with an Oxford comma?

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Jeremy Labrecque @jeremylabrecque.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

It's a relatively new course I give called Causal Thinking where the goal is to help them reason about whether or not the causal assumptions they rely on are satisfied and also how to reason when they are not satisfied. Basically I'm trying to address this gap: bsky.app/profile/jere...

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Thanks to Will for the shout out. I had a great time at the @applied-causal-graphs.de conference, which really made me optimistic about the quality of causal work being done. That I got to give a keynote there is something I still need to wrap my head around, but I'm glad it was so well received.

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Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 23/05/2026

Should you be interested in a a less 'dude, where's my equilibrium' approach to dags, I can recommend @dagophile.bsky.social's 2020, 2021, and forthcoming on homeostasis and causal control. We just got a great keynote from him at @applied-causal-graphs.de on those topics.

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Saoirse Kelleher @saoirsekelleher.eco · 20/05/2026

I’ve just finished this in the past week, but this is easily the best online course/series of lectures I’ve done. I’d tried it in a prior year and fallen on the wayside a bit, and I found the 2026 version with the split beginner/intermediate lectures much more approachable. Would recommend!!

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

This Thursday at noon I'll be presenting work on causation in physics at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy. Feel free to join if you're around. www.philosophie.lmu.de/mcmp/en/late...

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Sean Carroll @seanmcarroll.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

Mindscape 354 | Christian List @clist.bsky.social on Free Will and Levels of Reality. #MindscapePodcast www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026...

Title card for Mindscape podcast episode with Christian List

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

This Thursday at noon I'll be presenting work on causation in physics at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy. Feel free to join if you're around. www.philosophie.lmu.de/mcmp/en/late...

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Per Engzell @pengzell.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

New collider bias example just dropped

INSTITUTE FOR PERFORMANCE NEUROLOGY: Among elite young chess players, the kids with lower IQs were the stronger players. Chess is considered one of the most "intellectual" games in the world. But IQ didn't predict who was good at it. Swipe to see the research.

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Eiko Fried @eikofried.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

Wimsatt: Perhaps, just perhaps, the best explanation of a phenomenon at a given level is to be found at the same level. Kendler: Noone would seek to explain hypertension at the level of quarks. A few of my favourite papers on this topic of absurd biological reductionism: 🧵

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Transportability is by far the most ambitious concept I've covered to date. Feedback welcome! youtu.be/qD1X7IK1HQ0

youtu.be

E11: The Problem of Causal Extrapolation

YouTube video by Causal Foundations

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

New video on how to generalize experimental results -- Why it’s hard to characterize the problem within standard causal models, how the transportability framework of Bareinboim and Pearl helps, and why extrapolation ultimately goes beyond transportability. youtu.be/qD1X7IK1HQ0

youtu.be

E11: The Problem of Causal Extrapolation

YouTube video by Causal Foundations

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British Journal for the Philosophy of Science @thebjps.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

New BJPS Short Read! When are interventions evidence for their non-effects? Reuben Stern on correlation, causation, and choice www.thebsps.org/short-reads/... #philsci #philsky

thebsps.org

Correlation, Causation, and Choice | Reuben Stern | BJPS Short Reads

When are interventions evidence for their non-effects?

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

At some point I want write a paper titled "In defense of the naive view". I don't yet know which naive view I want to defend, but at least I've got a title!

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

I'm tremendously excited to be giving an invited talk at the upcoming ICML conference in Seoul. Feel free to reach out if you are going to be there, or know people who I might want to look out for. @icmlconf.bsky.social sites.google.com/view/philmli...

sites.google.com

PhilML@ICML26

Workshop Description

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

This is what it feels like every time I google how to get better sleep and I find advice like: “I used to have trouble falling asleep, but then I stopped drinking three cups of coffee right before going to bed”

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Bah! When I was young we used to have to cut of the box tops and bring them to school…

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

From a 1-star review of The Giving Tree

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Saloni @scientificdiscovery.dev · 05/04/2026

Few people are aware of how much progress has been made against cancers. Leukemia is probably the most striking example. Before the 1970s, most children affected by leukemia would soon die from it. Now, most children in rich countries survive. ourworldindata.org/childhood-le...

Survival curves of acute lymphoblastic leukemia and acute myeloid leukemia

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Fernanda Ferreira @fernandaedi.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Super thrilled that my article "Prosody" is now available to read in the Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science! oecs.mit.edu/pub/1w4cqquc... Thanks to @asifamajid.bsky.social and @mcxfrank.bsky.social for the opportunity and for creating such an amazing resource for our community!

oecs.mit.edu

Prosody

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David Barack @dlbarack.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Writing philosophy is like 'thought archaeology'--each rewrite and revision dregs up more and more of the underlying thought process that produced the text. Good but tiring!

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British Journal for the Philosophy of Science @thebjps.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

New BJPS Short Read! Why Does Causal Reasoning Work? Naftali Weinberger, Porter Williams & James Woodward on the role of worldly infrastructure www.thebsps.org/short-reads/... #philsci #philsky

thebsps.org

Why Does Causal Reasoning Work? | BJPS Short Reads

Naftali Weinberger, Porter Williams and James Woodward on the role of worldly infrastructure

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Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

Statistical Rethinking 2026 is done: 20 new lectures emphasizing logical and critical statistical workflow, from basics of probability theory to causal inference to reliable computation to sensitivity. It's all free, made just for you. Lecture list and links: github.com/rmcelreath/s...

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

Please share it when you can! I'm a coauthor on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on the paradox, and every few years we need to update it. plato.stanford.edu/entries/para...

plato.stanford.edu

Simpson’s Paradox (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

Useful life hack from an expert on data collection

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