Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 50mthey're calling it the most depressing train ride of the decade 030
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 06/10/2026cold take: it is weird to put a job you were offered and declined on your cv 140
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 05/10/2026static.klipy.comDeadheads 2011: We Got OneAlt: Deadheads 2011: We Got One 010
Reposted by Jake Quilty-DunnBrett Karlan @oldjerryfodor.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Just accepted today at Philosopher's Imprint: @evanwestra.bsky.social and I argue that human folk psychology is remarkably innovative, and this has unobvious and undertheorized implications for theories of cognitive ontology. So so happy to finally have this one placed philpapers.org/rec/KAROFIphilpapers.org 119016
Reposted by Jake Quilty-DunnBerna Devezer @devezer.bsky.social · 05/10/2026I don't understand this. 52 years later, why try and replicate the original? It's obviously not going to be the same study. The world has changed; cars, traffic, and people have changed. If one is interested in false memory, why not design the best study you can? What can you conclude meaningfully? 79113
Reposted by Jake Quilty-DunnDavid Barner @drbarner.bsky.social · 02/10/2026A new paper, to appear in Dev Psych. Why do kids as old as 5 or 6 count parts of things as though they were whole objects? We argue that this is pragmatic failure due to kids' inability to access alternative descriptions like "piece of fork". osf.io/preprints/ps... 25310
Reposted by Jake Quilty-DunnJorge Morales @jorgemorales.me · 01/10/2026Our lab is growing! We're looking for a graduate student to start next fall (applications due on Dec 1) and a postdoctoral researcher to start soon (ad coming soon; starting date is flexible, probably some time next year). subjectivitylab.orgsubjectivitylab.orgThe Subjectivity Lab · Duke University · Jorge Morales, PhDDuke interdisciplinary research group led by Dr. Jorge Morales studying vision, mental imagery, consciousness, and introspection. 14425
Reposted by Jake Quilty-DunnCharles C Roseman @evoroseman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026If you are in the greater Washington DC area on Friday 6 November and have an afternoon to spare, I’m giving a talk at George Mason University. I’d love to see you there. (baboon skull diagram from Theibault et al. 2026) 1/7 1148
Reposted by Jake Quilty-DunnJohanna Winant @johannawinant.bsky.social · 29/09/2026missing from this argument is the fact that Williams is an extraordinarily rich college with students who are overall very well-prepared for college—essentially none of this is generalizable even to a flagship university, much less any other higher education institutionnytimes.comOpinion | I’m a College Professor. Writing Isn’t as Important as We Think. (Gift Article)If I do not treat writing as essential for achieving thought, it is not clear why I should force my students to. 2522238
Reposted by Jake Quilty-DunnJake Spinella @jakespinella.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Delighted to say that my paper "E Pluribus Unum: Costly Inference and Fragmented Belief" has been accepted for publication in Mind! You can find the paper at this PhilPapers link. Abstract follows in a reply. philpapers.org/rec/SPIEPUphilpapers.org 4267
Reposted by Jake Quilty-DunnMal Shah @compositiomality.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Accepted to Linguistic Inquiry! I argue on syntactic grounds “some of the apples” is really “some apples of the apples” with NP-ellipsis. This explains which quantifiers and which modifiers (adjectives, prepositional phrases, relative clauses) can’t appear. Preprint: ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/009...ling.auf.net 44512
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026i think we have reached the "going around in circles" part of the discussion so i'll stop here 110
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026and it seems like you think we said this is a paradox? we did not 000
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026right but the conceptual point is the in principle compatibility of X being innate in, e.g., Spelke's sense - which you introduced above - with X arising from NN-style learning. from what you've said in this thread you should agree with this! (i thought you were going to but you shifted to Samuels) 200
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026ok, it sounds like you don't actually disagree with the main conceptual point of the paper (NNs can in principle satisfy some notions of innateness, including Spelke's, while still doing domain-general learning) that point is compatible with other notions of innateness and critiques of the studies 100
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Ok so you don't think availability during the first encounter suffices for innateness after all? 100
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026i don't know how you argue that NNs in this study fail to show a usable object representation during the initial encounter without giving up the idea that imprinting is innate in chicks. the model and the chick show the same behavior w the same data 100
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026note what you acknowledged back here! in principle, an ANN could tune its parameters during the initial encounter and construct an object representation available for storing a specific object identity - and thereby learn (subsymbolic parameter tuning) without learning in Spelke's sense 210
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026the NNs show this same capacity: a single limited encounter modeled on the chicks', with an internal representation constructed during that encounter that is used to distinguish target from control object at test. 100
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026...a control object, even at arbitrary unseen angles. so there is a learning phase and a test phase, but the learning phase is a single, initial encounter and in order to explain the test phase behavior, the chicks must form an object representation at that initial encounter. 100
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026(fwiw your comments above seem to agree with this conceptual point.) now the empirical point: one set of studies here are the 3D imprinting studies (Pandey et al). chicks see their first object, an object rotating a small amount, and form a representation they can use to distinguish it from... 100
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026the NN has no info about that domain prior to the first encounter. so: it is learning in the sense of tuning its parameters to experience while also not learning in the sense of showing a classic learning trajectory. this is a purely conceptual point about what we would say if NNs could do this 210
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026let's focus on the conceptual point first. i agree that the notion of innateness that is most important in dev psych would say that if a vanilla NN can deploy a representation of X during the first encounter then it has that representation innately. but this does create a tension: 110
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026you are right that the behavior in chicks is clearly innate. and it is also recapitulated in NNs without an additional learning phase. so the "learning trajectory" is just as absent in the NNs as in the chicks. happy to talk more over email if you prefer! 110
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026the NN also constructs an object representation that is "present and functional on...first effective informational encounters with the entities to which it applies" - the very same informational encounters the chicks have. this is the central tension of our paper: 110
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026the assumption that NNs are classical associative learners and obey classical learning trajectories is one of the entrenched ideas we are trying to correct 010
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026the cases we cite in the paper can't be dismissed in this way precisely because the digital twins don't have the learning curve you assume they do 210
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026the braine paper is great, an underrated classic 010
Reposted by Jake Quilty-DunnVincent Carchidi @vcarchidi.bsky.social · 26/09/2026A paper by @quiltydunn.bsky.social and Justin Wood arguing that the nativism-empiricism dispute in cognitive science is broken caught my attention. Rather than critique their paper (linked below), I take it as an opportunity to struggle with the ideas. vincentcarchidi.substack.com/p/is-the-nat...vincentcarchidi.substack.comIs the Nativism-Empiricism Debate Broken?Upon surveying the literature on nativism and empiricism in cognitive science, a reasonable person might come to the conclusion that the entire thing is best avoided. 2132
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 26/09/2026i was so confused by this in grad school - why was i not as busy as these other people despite working what felt like all the time. ironically it made me feel like an imposter 020
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 26/09/2026in academia if you wear a tie people react like you're wearing a tuxedo and holding a sign that says "I'm a fancy boy" 0321
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 24/09/2026apostrophe errorstatic.klipy.comDevastated Meme: Object EvaporatesALT: Devastated Meme: Object Evaporates 020
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 24/09/2026the point must be discovery - i.e., getting lots and lots of data from these weirdo's phones. i bet they don't want that regardless so won't sue 370
Reposted by Jake Quilty-DunnTomer Ullman @tomerullman.bsky.social · 24/09/2026we've always had the secret hack of 'cheating'. You could, in principle, pay a qualified human to fully write your materials for you. If you see what's wrong with that, apply that reasoning to using genAI for this. If you see nothing wrong with that, I don't know what to tell you. 0275
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 24/09/2026wtf i am teaching this later this term and hadn't paid attention to the figures. why did scientific american do this 040
Reposted by Jake Quilty-Dunnvictor @notnaughtknot.bsky.social · 24/09/2026it’s 2026, high schoolers should have to read fodor 1192
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 24/09/2026i don't reveal it when i talk to any psychologist or neuroscientist until i feel it's safe. they look at you like you said concepts are little microscopic fairies hidden in each synapse 120
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 23/09/2026static.klipy.comBunnymeyer: 'Seen Felt And Heard' ExpressionALT: Bunnymeyer: 'Seen Felt And Heard' Expression 120
Reposted by Jake Quilty-DunnMike Feigin 🥯 @mikefeigin.bsky.social · 23/09/2026It’s crazy. I’m reading a Nature Communications paper. I can’t get through it. So much data. So little of it matters. So many conclusions drawn about nothing. 2297
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 23/09/2026spreadsheets-are-all-you-need.ai you can look at how gpt 2 small runs in excel which is unbelievably helpfulspreadsheets-are-all-you-need.aiSpreadsheets are all you need.ai – Learn AI topics using familiar tools 020
Reposted by Jake Quilty-DunnTomer Ullman @tomerullman.bsky.social · 22/09/2026new preprint: "Directing large language models to follow the letter or spirit of the law" arxiv.org/pdf/2609.23083 (by Qian , Li, Chen, Murthy @soniakmurthy.bsky.social , Belinkov, and me) this is particularly cool/important, and I'm allowed to say it because it was headed by @pqian.bsky.social 17323
Reposted by Jake Quilty-DunnGabor Brody @gaborbrody.bsky.social · 21/09/2026I have a new preprint with Athulya Aravind. In it, we ask how can children learn the presuppositional meaning component of a word (e.g. "both" presupposing a |2| domain) Our claim... ...is that they can't. Presuppositional meanings are unlearnable. Preprint: lingbuzz.net/lingbuzz/010... 1206
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 21/09/2026everything I know about will stancil i learned against my will 3150
Reposted by Jake Quilty-DunnKenneth Black @kennethblack.bsky.social · 18/09/2026New paper! “Order of Explanation: Having it Both Ways” is now forthcoming in Noûs. It’s been a really fun paper to write and I’m stoked to share it.philpapers.org 84011
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 19/09/2026one of the biggest frontiers in neuroscience and understanding ANNs, imo, is whether/how to give phenomena like this a semantic reading. deep stuff at the neuro/psych border...which is just to say i fully agree w your OP 010
Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 19/09/2026like trying to pin down what contents are superpositioned in the NN? 110
Reposted by Jake Quilty-DunnSimon Schug @smonsays.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Human thought is thought to be systematic: Do reasoning models have systematicity of thought? With @brendenlake.bsky.social we study this question in our new preprint arxiv.org/abs/2609.13948 Thread 🧵 14014
