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Ned Block

@neddo.bsky.social
3.9K followers 349 following 52 posts

Older than you

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Reposted by Ned Block
hakwan lau @hakwan.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
osf.io/preprints/ps... Testing Biopsychism: Commentary on Block’s (2025) “Can Only Meat Machines Be Conscious?”
osf.io
OSF
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Ian Phillips @ianbphillips.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
My reply to @liadmudrik.bsky.social et al.'s proposal that we should reengineer @neddo.bsky.social's famous phenomenal/access distinction.
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Clarifying the conceptual dimensions of representation in neuroscience
Nature Reviews Neuroscience - Appeals to representation are widespread, despite neuroscientists’ uncertainty about what kind of findings count as evidence for such claims. In this...
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Reposted by Ned Block
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
bars
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
My review of Michal Pollan's book on consciousness: www.science.org/eprint/FTJG7...
science.org
The elusive nature of consciousness
A writer grapples with neuroscience’s hardest problem
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
Understanding whether consciousness depends on computational roles, biological realizers, or both, is crucial for assessing the prospects of consciousness in AI and less complex animals. end/
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
subcomputational biological realizers favors consciousness in simpler animals. Current theories of consciousness are 'meat-neutral', but if specific physical substrates are necessary, AI may never achieve consciousness. 3/
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
processes, are necessary for consciousness. By contrasting computational roles with their subcomputational biological realizers, I show that there is a systematic tension in our criteria for consciousness: prioritizing computational roles favors consciousness in AI, while prioritizing 2/
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
Computational functionalism claims that executing certain computations is sufcient for consciousness, regardless of the physical mechanisms implementing those computations. This view neglects a compelling alternative: that subcomputational biological mechanisms, which realize computational 1/
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
Can Only Meat Machines be Conscious? New paper in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, free download until November 26 with this URL: authors.elsevier.com/a/1luwh4sIRv...
authors.elsevier.com
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
See tiny red line of link to today's actual news
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Reposted by Ned Block
Angela Potochnik @apotochnik.bsky.social · 22/03/2025
I’m shocked my book is on this list. But, cool! Great company.
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
Consciousness before birth? Imaging studies explore the possibility | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
Consciousness before birth? Imaging studies explore the possibility
Fetal and infant brains offer clues to when human experience begins
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 01/03/2025
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
Goodby global workspace and higher order theories
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
First order theories of consciousness win again
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
direct.mit.edu/jocn/article...
direct.mit.edu
EEG Decoding of Conscious versus Unconscious Representations during Binocular Rivalry
Abstract. Theories of visual awareness often fall into two general categories, those assuming that awareness arises rapidly within visual cortex and those assuming that awareness arises more slowly as...
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Matthias Michel @matthiasmichel.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
Excellent interview of @neddo.bsky.social (www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM1f...)
youtube.com
Ned Block: Consciousness, Artificial Intelligence, and the Philosophy of Mind
YouTube video by Robinson Erhardt
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Reposted by Ned Block
hakwan lau @hakwan.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
authors.elsevier.com/a/1kHSZ4sIRv... in this short letter in TICS, @matthiasmichel.bsky.social & @jorge-morales.bsky.social argue against the episodic memory deficit interpretation of aphantasia proposed by @andreablomkvist.bsky.social. a lack of imagery awareness may be all there is 1/2
authors.elsevier.com
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Reposted by Ned Block
hakwan lau @hakwan.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
since @neddo.bsky.social & i so rarely agree on anything other than restaurant choices, this is possibly legit 2/2
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Reposted by Ned Block
Jorge Morales @jorgemorales.me · 18/12/2024
I should add that even though we do offer a possible alternative reading of the data to the one offered by @andreablomkvist.bsky.social, her work on aphantasia remains some of the best on the subject. If you’re interested in the topic, you should read her work. bsky.app/profile/hakw...
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Reposted by Ned Block
Jorge Morales @jorgemorales.me · 18/12/2024
Short letter in TiCS where we (@matthiasmichel.bsky.social, @hakwan.bsky.social & @neddo.bsky.social) explore the possibility that aphantasia is unconscious mental imagery. Given aphantasics’ high performance, we propose thinking about it as blindsight of the mind’s eye. www.cell.com/trends/cogni...
cell.com
Aphantasia as imagery blindsight
In a recent article in TiCS [1], Zeman provided a masterful and balanced review of aphantasia. However, in doing so, he might have been too generous to some accounts. Specifically, unlike Zeman, we consider the view that aphantasia involves nonconscious imagistic representations [2] to be clearly superior to other views. Here, we argue against these other views as they were described by Zeman. In addition, we address some additional arguments that have been raised to counter the idea that aphantasia involves nonconscious imagistic representations [3], which were not addressed by Zeman in his review.
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
Heather Cox Richardson on the events in South Korea today: "The events in Seoul also cemented the shift in social media from X to Bluesky, where news was breaking faster than anywhere else, in a way that echoed what Twitter used to be."
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
@matthiasmichel.bsky.social share with Hakwan Lau, Axel Cleeremans and others. Your reply is that the unconscious visual state causes feelings or imagery states that cause a high confidence higher order monitoring state that [?] comes after the first order state. Maybe. But this is an ad hoc/2
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
@matthiasmichel.bsky.social I said the new blindsight data suggests that the patient has an unconscious first order perceptual representation accompanied by a higher order cognitive monitoring state about the first order state. That is a counterexample to the higher order monitoring theory you/1
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
This metacognitive awareness without first order awareness is a problem for higher order pointer views. They will have to say that the particular kind of metacognitive awareness is not the kind that makes a first order state conscious. Sounds ad hoc.
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
academic.oup.com/cercor/advan... Analysis of recordings of conversations with the only carefully studied bilateral human blindsight patient reveals that he knows he is seeing red without, apparently, perceptual phenomenology of redness. 1/
academic.oup.com
On the bright side of blindsight. Considerations from new observations of awareness in a blindsight patient
Abstract. Blindsight refers to the ability to make accurate visual discriminations without conscious awareness of the stimuli. In this study, we present ne
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 09/05/2024
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
States of mind
A neuroscientist searches for the seat of consciousness
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 12/12/2023
24 hour police protection for the Washington Square menorah. The policeman told me they were there throughout the night every night
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Reposted by Ned Block
Kieran Setiya @ksetiya.bsky.social · 24/10/2023
I wrote about Tom Nagel’s moral philosophy for the LA Review of Books lareviewofbooks.org/article/reflect…
lareviewofbooks.org
Reflections of a Moral Realist: On Thomas Nagel’s “Moral Feelings, Moral Reality, and Moral Progress”
Kieran Setiya reviews Thomas Nagel’s “Moral Feelings, Moral Reality, and Moral Progress.”...
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