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Ned Block

@neddo.bsky.social
4K 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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Reposted by Ned Block
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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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
Free link rdcu.be/e9b6
rdcu.be
Making methane visible
Nature Climate Change - Optimized infrared hyperspectral imaging can now detect methane gradients on a sub-m2 scale. This can facilitate remote assessment of methane sources and sinks to improve...
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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 · 09/02/2026
Congratulations!!!
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 13/12/2025
The worst thing was lying about patients’ symptoms
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 13/12/2025
Just do science
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 11/10/2025
I agree that the line of thought I was sketching is hard to test. But I call your attention to the last sentence of the article: "A breakthrough will be needed for progress, and failing to recognize that a breakthrough is needed may not be conducive to nding it."
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
There are a couple of paragraphs that are supposed to be a reply to this point
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
I’d be glad to do that
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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 · 05/10/2025
Hmmm…my reply is somewhat similar drive.google.com/file/d/1cIUk...
drive.google.com
2025.Michel.Fleming.response.pdf
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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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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
Hilarious!
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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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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
❤️
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 25/01/2025
Yes and the opposite makes much more sense. To get a conscious state you need a carefully orchestrated group of events but if any one of them goes wrong you fail to get consciousness. Many of those misfires will be unconscious so that is why there are more ways of having an unconscious state
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Reposted by Ned Block
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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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 20/12/2024
They don’t mention the dorsal visual system which is adapted to fast motor responses
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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 · 07/12/2024
Very poor fake. You are there in the first frame only
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
Subcortical pathways do not get input from the short wave cones, hence better sensitivity to long waves, I.e. red. That explains it
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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
But you take on a lot of extra commitments. @beatricedegelder.bsky.social, @hakwan.bsky.social 4 of 4
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
postulation. You postulate a circuitous causal route between the unconscious first order representation and the higher order monitoring state. Maybe you think it doesn’t even index the unconscious first order state. All this shows is that your theory is compatible with the results,/3
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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 · 03/12/2024
No haven’t seen it but I’ll get it
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
Thanks
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
bsky.app/profile/matt...
bsky.app
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
bsky.app/profile/hakw... What do you say?
bsky.app
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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 · 26/11/2024
Exemptions is the reason. Reward friends, wreck vengeance on enemies
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
I reviewed it at the time. I’ll send you the review
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