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Mariel Goddu

@marielgoddu.bsky.social
1.1K followers 1.4K following 389 posts

Philosophy of mind & cognitive science in bio-metaphysical perspective philosophy.stanford.edu/people/mari… Proud ex-dev psychologist

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Reposted by Mariel Goddu
Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I just came back to this paper, and precarity is such a good, fascinating concept. It seems intuitively true that care is needed where things are precarious. And yet the angels-on-pinheads debates about AI welfare are a million miles away from this basic reality of (precarious) life.
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Mariel Goddu @marielgoddu.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Fall Term 2026 (Sept 22-Dec 11) -Aristotle on the Practical Imagination -Paper: ‘Intuitive Physics‘ is for Action -Practicum (cont.): Infant causal learning & primary intersubjectivity
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Laura Danón @ldanon.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
My entry on Animal Thought for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is now online! plato.stanford.edu/entries/anim...
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Nature Portfolio @natureportfolio.nature.com · 22/08/2026
A study in Nature Human Behaviour shows that directing attention to bodily sensations, rather than away, promotes more regulated acute inflammatory responses in healthy volunteers, revealing sensory and vagal pathways linking mind and immune function. go.nature.com/4x7rUNR #immunosky 🧪
This is figure 2, which shows that sensory signalling contributes to attentional regulation of inflammation.
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Mariel Goddu @marielgoddu.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
An evolutionary perspective on predictive processing (Rust, 2024) We needed this!! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
Beginning at the beginning: predictive processing and coupled representations
A typical expository strategy for the predictive processing account begins with perception and then extends to other cognitive domains, such as action or non-human animal cognition. Because this st...
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Mariel Goddu @marielgoddu.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Recovering from a writing bender; clearing desk of "notes to self" Hummingbirds Seals Star nosed moles Footnote: Narwhals
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Mariel Goddu @marielgoddu.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Delighting in Pasnau's "Who killed the causality of things?" (Noûs, 2025). Please, more playful philosophy! spot.colorado.edu/~pasnau/inpr...
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Mike Levin @drmichaellevin.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
new #preprint @pigozzife.bsky.social arxiv.org/abs/2607.28250 Once you get replicators, Darwinian evolution can happen. What's happening *before* replicators arise? "Causal Architecture Dynamics Prior to Arrival of Self-replicators in a Model of Catalytic Networks Relevant to Origin-of-Life"
arxiv.org
Causal Architecture Dynamics Prior to Arrival of Self-replicators in a Model of Catalytic Networks Relevant to Origin-of-Life
Agents that exert causal power in the world are thought to be the product of selection among diverse replicators; what is the causal structure of a medium before replicators appear, and evolution take...
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Digital Brain @yourdigitalbrain.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
A bio-inspired robot crosses paths with a real insect , 400 million years of evolution face to face with human engineering.
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Mariel Goddu @marielgoddu.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
"When I write philosophy, I do not take myself to be merely informing you, the reader, of some Points, which are detached from me. Rather, my words are mine, and I assume responsibility for them. I take this to be the essence of our mutual contract, as reader and writer: I may expect your
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Mariel Goddu @marielgoddu.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
"Watch a Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) long enough, and you realize that flowers were doing origami long before paper existed." Fascinating brief explication of the biomechanics of flower opening:
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Mariel Goddu @marielgoddu.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
“[W]hat remains when intelligence becomes cheap? Presence. Embodiment. Ritual. Family. Friendship. Love. The courage to participate in the lives of others without control. The willingness to be changed by people who are not designed for us.” What a worthwhile essay!
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Mariel Goddu @marielgoddu.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Summer Term 2026 (Jun 22-Aug 25) -Paper: ‘The Participatory Perspective’ -Paper: ‘Who Needs Causal Representations?’ -Practicum: Neonatal intuitive physics & causal learning
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Evolution Letters @evolletters.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
How predictable is evolution? Replicated C. elegans experiments show environmental differences and population bottlenecks jointly shape the repeatability of adaptation doi.org/10.1093/evle... Image credit: Wikimedia
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Kevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
World models in natural and artificial intelligence royalsocietypublishing.org/rsta/issue/3... - super interesting and very timely collection of articles on what it means to understand the world...
royalsocietypublishing.org
Volume 384 Issue 2320 | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A | The Royal Society
Influential themed journal issues across the physical mathematical and engineering sciences.
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Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda @alejandrofabregastejeda.com · 12/05/2026
It is publication day for The Organism-Environment Pairing (@mitpress.bsky.social)! This 📗 has been deeply formative for me as a scholar, and it owes so much to so many wonderful people. I truly hope it finds many readers! mitpress.mit.edu/978026205282... #booksky #philsci #histsci #philsky #evosky
Photograph of the book The Organism–Environment Pairing: A Historical and Philosophical Reappraisal (MIT Press, 2026) displayed on a small wooden easel. The green cover features multicolored title text and an image of a monarch butterfly resting on pink milkweed flowers, layered over a larger pale-green butterfly silhouette. The spine, visible at an angle, repeats the title and author’s name, Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda. Softly blurred purple-and-white flowers appear in the background.
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Philosophical Psychology @journalphp.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
New #vol39issue4! First is Joshua Rust, exploring what a predictive processing account would look like if it started with the highly coupled representations carried by our evolutionary ancestors and other non-human organisms doi.org/10.1080/0951... #evolution #philsky #philpsy
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Mariel Goddu @marielgoddu.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
Interdisciplinary name tag bling (comparative /computational /developmental /philosophy /vision science! )
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British Journal for the Philosophy of Science @thebjps.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
ICYMI: Matthew Sims reviews Jan Baedke’s The Organism www.thebsps.org/reviewofbook... #philsci #hpbio #philsky
thebsps.org
Jan Baedke, The Organism | BJPS Review of Books
Matthew Sims reviews The Organism, by Jan Baedke
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Mariel Goddu @marielgoddu.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
The Unfolding World: Causal & Physical Cognition in Humans and Other Animals (April 24-25) We're bringing together comparative, computational, developmental, vision science & philosophy for a workshop on causal reasoning + intuitive physics! If you're in the Cambridge (UK) area, check it out! ⬇️
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MINT Lab @mintlab.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
@segundo-ortin.bsky.social is running a conference ‘Embodied Cognition and Comparative Psychology’ in early May at the University of Murcia. Find out more and register: embodiedcomparativepsychology.square.site
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Sam Gershman @gershbrain.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
One of the wildest things I learned about planarian flatworms: you can isolate their pharynx (throat) and it will autonomously engage in feeding behavior. www.science.org/doi/full/10....
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Marco Facchin @marcofacchin.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
The ISPSM is happy to announce a double book symposium on: Kate Nave's A Drive to Survive & Jakob Hohwy's The Self-Evidencing Agent May 12, H 10:00 CEST Subscription form Here: forms.gle/NGkFaVYHS7Lk... #philmind #philsci #philsky #philpsy #neurosky #neuroskyence
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Many Minds podcast @manymindspod.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
'Philosophers of Many Minds': A selection of our interviews with philosophers!! 🎙️🎙️ Now on Spotify: open.spotify.com/playlist/6UZ...
open.spotify.com
Philosophers of Many Minds
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Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda @alejandrofabregastejeda.com · 09/03/2026
What a joy to finally share the cover of The Organism–Environment Pairing (@mitpress.bsky.social)! The 📗 will be out on May 12 📆! I look forward to the conversations it sparks among scientists, philosophers & historians! mitpress.mit.edu/978026205282... #evosky #histsci #philsci #philsky #booksky 🌱🐋
Book cover with a green gradient background for "The Organism–Environment Pairing: A Historical and Philosophical Reappraisal" by Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda (MIT Press, 2026). The book series label “The Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology” appears at the top. The title is set in large, bold lettering using three colors: white (“The” and “Pairing”), warm yellow (“Organism–”), and bright green (“Environment”). The subtitle appears below in smaller white text, and the author’s name is printed at the bottom. In the lower right, a monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) rests on clusters of pink milkweed flowers. Behind it, a large pale-green butterfly silhouette fills the background; its outline follows the shape of a red lacewing butterfly (Cethosia biblis). The layered butterflies visually echo the book’s central idea of an organism–environment pairing.
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Mariel Goddu @marielgoddu.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
I've really enjoyed this series on Philosophy of Biology from @closertotruth.bsky.social: closertotruth.com/project/phil... Videos are 25min each, consist mainly of interviews with experts, and cover topics ranging from units of selection to biological information to evolution of cognition
closertotruth.com
Philosophy of Biology - Closer To Truth
Philosophy of Biology has two sides: the process of science and the content of biology. We address key questions. What is the nature of life? How does evolution work and what…video Why Philosophy of B...
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Mariel Goddu @marielgoddu.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Spring Term 2026 (Mar 30-Jun 10) -Paper: 'The Participatory Perspective' -Workshop: 'The Unfolding World: Causal & physical cognition in humans and other animals' -Philosophy of Language -Metalogic -3D Printing a Human Being: Weeks 28-38
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Mariel Goddu @marielgoddu.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
#nokings #oakland
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🐭 Danielle Williams 🐹 @okaydaniellle.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
"persons and bodies"
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Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute #DISI @divintelligence.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
📣📣📣 Applications for the 2026 Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) are now open!! Are you interested in intelligence, mind, and cognition in all its forms? Early-career scholars from any discipline—and storytellers in any medium—are encouraged to apply! More info: disi.org
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Michael Gaebler @michaelgaebler.com · 09/03/2026
Beautiful study and results by @marieloescher.bsky.social on the behavioral relevance of the gastric (and cardiac and respiratory) rhythm. Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #MindBrainBody #MBB2026
Photo with speaker and slide at the MBB SymposiumDiscussion slide at the MBB Symposium
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Evan Thompson @evanthompson.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
"Reality Is Not a Controlled Hallucination" by yours truly iai.tv/articles/rea...
iai.tv
Reality is not a controlled hallucination
<p><em>The idea that 'reality is a controlled hallucination' has been recently popularised by figures such as philosopher Anil Seth. But this claim, which purports to be hard, down-to-earth science, i...
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Mariel Goddu @marielgoddu.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
“[O]nce I was relieved of the burden of having to figure out the answer to the other, I could more clearly see and appreciate the complex mystery of whoever stood before me” Parker Henry’s beautifully personal review of Hopwood’s The Moral Philosophy of Iris Murdoch thepointmag.com/criticism/mo...
thepointmag.com
Moral Mysteries | The Point Magazine
“It is always a significant question to ask about any philosopher: what is he afraid of?” wrote Iris Murdoch in her slim work of moral philosophy, The Sovereignty of Good.
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Angela Potochnik @apotochnik.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
Check out the newest Element in Public Engagement with Science: Mothers as Science Storytellers, by Emma Frances Bloomfield. Full text free to download until March 12. doi.org/10.1017/9781... #philsci #scicomm 🧪
doi.org
Mothers as Science Storytellers
Cambridge Core - Environmental Policy, Economics and Law - Mothers as Science Storytellers
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Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
"The problem is not simply that cross-species translation is difficult; it is that the field has largely accepted this difficulty rather than treating it as a central scientific challenge. Neuroscience has also struggled to confront the fact that different species often tell different stories."
thetransmitter.org
Neuroscience has a species problem
If neuroscience is serious about building general principles of brain function, cross-species dialogue must become a core organizing principle.
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Kevin Healy @healyke.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
Our new paper is now out showing how time perception in animals is linked to their ecology. Using data from 237 species we show temporal perception is faster in species that fly and pursuit predators www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🌐
nature.com
Pace of ecology drives the tempo of visual perception across the animal kingdom
Nature Ecology & Evolution - Using phylogenetic comparative methods across 237 species from disparate phyla, the authors show that species with fast-paced ecologies have higher temporal...
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Mariel Goddu @marielgoddu.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
1. This thread is totally lovely and scientists are some of our best people 2. Reading this really validated my life choices because a good day in the "philosophy lab" is me hyperfocused in my office obsessively writing, forgetting I have a spatiotemporal location & a body and speaking to no one
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Mariel Goddu @marielgoddu.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
Today is my 15-year vegetarian birthday. 🎂🥬 Here's the book that convinced me –– Jonathan Safran Foer's "Eating Animals." Anyone else have a favorite piece of reasons-to-eat-vegetarian literature? www.powells.com/book/eating-...
powells.com
Eating Animals | Powell's Books
Like many young Americans, Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his teenage and college years oscillating between enthusiastic carnivore and occasional vegetarian. As he became a husband, and then a fat...
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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 28/01/2026
Early Arthropods xkcd.com/3199/
3-panel comic. (1) [Three small arthropods on ocean floor.] ARTHROPOD 1: Now that we’re multicellular, what are your plans? I’m gonna evolve little legs and swim around with them! ARTHROPOD 2: I’m gonna evolve sharp pincers and use them to crunch stuff! ARTHROPOD 3: I’m gonna evolve glands to make string from my butt and use it to construct elaborate geometric nets hundreds of times my size to catch other animals. (2) [Silence] (3) ARTHROPOD 1: *Dude.* ARTHROPOD 2: Can you *please* just be normal about this? ARTHROPOD 3: *What??!*
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
I think this is good and support it. dailynous.com/2025/12/10/e...
dailynous.com
Editors at Springer’s Journal of Philosophical Logic Resign, Launch New Open Access Journal - Daily Nous
All of the editors-in-chief and associate editors of Springer Nature's Journal of Philosophical Logic have announced their immediate or pending resignation and the launch, as of today, of a new "diamo...
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Mariel Goddu @marielgoddu.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
For anyone who's tempted to believe in "AI consciousness": here's a wonderfully clear and accessible set of arguments to consider, if you're open to changing your mind. Kudos @anilseth.bsky.social for calling out the Cartesian absurdity of "techno-rapture" & going to bat for biological naturalism!🤘
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Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
I've been working for ages on a comprehensive revamp of the Stanford Encyclopedia Entry on "Animal Consciousness", with new sections on non-Western perspectives, methodological challenges and evolutionary big pictures, and it's out today: plato.stanford.edu/entries/cons.... Hope you find it useful!
Animal Consciousness (first paragraph of the article).
First published Sat Dec 23, 1995; substantive revision Tue Jan 13, 2026.

Is there something it’s like to be an octopus, a bee, a snail? For much of the twentieth century, research into animal cognition tended to avoid questions of consciousness, following the lead of human neuroscience, where such questions were also marginalized (see the entries on animal cognition, methods in comparative cognition). However, the growing profile of consciousness science since 2000 has brought the topic of consciousness back into the scientific mainstream (see the entry on the neuroscience of consciousness), and this has led to resurgent interest in studying conscious experience in other animals.
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Many Minds podcast @manymindspod.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
A new academic term is ramping up. Have you considered putting our episodes on your syllabi? Conversations offer an accessible and engaging format—your students will thank you! We have 100+ episodes to choose from, covering many forms of mind from all disciplinary angles. disi.org/manyminds/
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Bridget Waller @bridgetwaller.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
Our Science Perspective on Ianni et al - neural control of facial expressions involves voluntary pathways @jamiewhitehouse.bsky.social www.science.org/eprint/EKJTZ...
science.org
Making faces
Facial expressions are produced through a coordinated system of voluntary and emotional pathways
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Scientific American @sciam.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
A new study reveals that some smart dogs can learn words just by overhearing humans’ conversations
scientificamerican.com
Some Dogs Learn New Words Just Like Toddlers Do
A new study reveals that some smart dogs can learn words just by overhearing humans’ conversations
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Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
Martin Peterson's creative response to being banned from teaching Plato (shared with his permission).
An email from Martin Peterson to university administrators.
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Erik Angner @erikangner.com · 07/01/2026
So glad we got rid of cancel culture though
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Mariel Goddu @marielgoddu.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
Embarking on a writing project about enactivism; spent the morning w/ Chapter 1 ("Biodynamic Enactivism") of @kathrynnave.bsky.social's 'A Drive to Survive' and it is a *GIFT* 🍰. Whole book is open access –– an actual gift!! –– here: direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...
direct.mit.edu
A Drive to Survive: The Free Energy Principle and the Meaning of Life
How the purposive behavior of living systems outstrips the constraints of the free energy principle.Since 2005, Karl Friston's proposal that the principle
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Mariel Goddu @marielgoddu.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
Winter Term 2026 (Jan 5-Mar 20) -Teaching Assistant: Philosophy of Evolutionary Biology -'Naturalizing Enactivism' (Independent Study) -'Models of Enactive & Embodied Cognition' (I.S.) -3D Printing a Human Being: Weeks 17-27
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Madeleine Baker @madeleineebaker.bsky.social · 04/01/2026
525 things can be true, people. 1 The world is all that is the case. 1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things. 1.11 The world is determined by the facts, and by their being all the facts. 1.12 For the totality of facts determines what is the case, and also whatever is not
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