iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Also, we make conscious decisions based on our feelings. But can we choose our feelings?

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Some of my questions are illustrated by this cartoon: Free Will? Or just luck, upbringing & genes?

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Sapolsky to Peter Tse: Where did your criteria come from for criterial causation?

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Robert Sapolsky argues against the free will suggestion that it’s not about the hand you’re dealt with but how you play it.

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Is AI stalling? It did writing, then pictures & music, then short form videos. It still can’t do playable games or workable programs apart from a front screen. Not seen users creating longer form videos. Definite tweaks from 2024 to 2026. But 2022 to 2024 saw massive changes.

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Damasio also answers the Pixies question: ‘Where is my mind?’

Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Brilliant explanation from Damasio on the difference between feelings & emotions. Feelings are primal: they are felt indicators of how the body is doing and vary in pleasantness & intensity. Emotions are movements (motions) which embody feelings (facial expressions/actions).

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

The mind is not wet tissue like the brain. So what is it?

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Do the simulated people in a simulated rainstorm get wet?

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

I agree about the LLMs, but if an artificial system was embodied (in a robot, for example) with sensory inputs & a drive to survive, would it be conscious in the same way that a plane flies?

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

I don’t think current LLMs are conscious. However, if bird flies & a plane behaves as if it flies (it does fly). Then - if a mind is conscious & an AI behaves as if it is conscious, what is the difference?

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Is the “critic’s distortion pedal” a thing? In music a “difficult or abrasive surface texture is often mistaken for compositional depth. A conventional song buried under noise can seem more radical than it actually is.” Can you think of any examples?

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

My poster at #AGI2026 in San Francisco. Affective Control under Uncertainty. “I feel, therefore I am conscious. I am uncertain, therefore I become a self.” #AGI26

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Pleased to be published in Artificial General Intelligence. AGI 2026. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 16855. Springer. Page 57 - Affective Control Under Uncertainty.

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Pleased to be part of AGI-26 today. I’ve got an article in the book (between @macrinephd.bsky.social & @bengoertzel.bsky.social /Anna Mikeda). There is also a livestream at 00:35 UK time.

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How do you do all this amazing stuff? I tried with Kimi and this is what I got.

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This cartoon is a super-simplification, but what are the issues with it in terms of the free-will debate? @wiringthebrain.bsky.social @greggdcaruso.bsky.social

Dario Amodei said he’s open to the idea that an LLM could be conscious. But conscious of what?

Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

My experience of customer service chatbots - Me: I’d like to add something to my plan & give you additional revenue. Them: You’ve hurt your foot? Me: No Them: Would you like help with crocheting? Me: No Them: Do you require a boat?

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AI disproves the Jacobian conjecture after 87 years. Levent Alpöge (with Fable) showed an example of non-reversibility in a single post during the World Cup!

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

What about this for a movie idea? “In a world where everyone can vanish, one man refuses to disappear.” ‘Tiger, Tiger’: adaptation of ‘The Stars My Destination’ by Alfred Bester (itself a sci-fi adaptation of ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’) with Austin Butler & Anya Taylor-Joy.

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Lot of hype for Kimi K3 AI from Moonshot. I’ve had a little try. Maybe it’s my prompts, but it doesn’t seem as world shattering as some are saying. Topically, I thought I’d ask for a realistic football game. On the left: what I thought I’d get. On the right: what I got.

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

There’s a lot of hype around Kimi K3 from Moonshot. For me, most of the time it is unavailable and when it is the graphics are very 1970s - blocky.

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Samantha Morton was excellent as Circe.

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

I saw ‘The Odyssey’. Wasn’t as bad as some of the online build-up suggested. Was that part of the marketing? Under promise and over deliver? Interesting framing of the horse: from clever tactic to breaking the laws of civilisation.

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Reposted by Scott McFarnell

François Kammerer @lovingautomaton.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

My book on consciousness at Oxford University Press is now available! It is titled House of Mirrors: The Illusion of Phenomenal Consciousness. The (open access) pdf can be downloaded for free on Oxford Academic: academic.oup.com/book/62981 Printed copies should be available at the end of July.

academic.oup.com

House of Mirrors: The Illusion of Phenomenal Consciousness

Abstract. This book provides a defense and an exploration of illusionism regarding phenomenal consciousness. Phenomenal consciousness supposedly encompasse

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Is the sudden willingness to entertain the idea that today’s LLMs might be conscious really science, or is it a valuation strategy? Make the product sound like an emerging mind, inflate the story, then float the company at a higher price?

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Reposted by Scott McFarnell

Earl K. Miller @earlkmiller.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Cognition is rhythmic. Competing items in working memory take turns guiding attention in rhythms coordinated by brain oscillations. Visual working memory guides attention rhythmically in humans doi.org/10.7554/eLif... #neuroscience

doi.org

Visual working memory guides attention rhythmically in humans

Working memory alternates between remembered items in a rhythmic theta cycle.

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Reposted by Scott McFarnell

Keith Frankish @keithfrankish.com · 14/07/2026

This song was released at a point in time closer to the Spanish Civil War than to today.

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

As well as breaking down nonequilibrium states, nature likes to build them up as well. Otherwise there would be no stars or planets. So in theory the nonequilibium states are already prepared by nature. What do you think?

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

If work can be extracted while a prepared nonequilibrium state relaxes towards equilibrium, can we one day create an ‘Entropy Drive’? Is anyone working on this?

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

I quite like PJ Harvey’s new song ‘Voyager’. What do you think? youtu.be/XzCjzFsGl_c?...

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

I watched the feature-length Black Mirror episode “Beyond the Sea” where Aaron Paul & Josh Hartnett’s consciousnesses alternately inhabit a robot body. They only do this one at a time, but what if two consciousnesses inhabited one body? Is that feasible? Has it ever happened?

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Reposted by Scott McFarnell

Stanislas Dehaene @standehaene.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Lionel Naccache and I wrote a commentary on this work from a neuroscience perspective. You can read it here : unicog.org/a-global-wor...

unicog.org

A global workspace in language models – Unicog_2025

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Reposted by Scott McFarnell

Stanislas Dehaene @standehaene.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

The global neuronal workspace (GNW) is currently the best documented neuroscience mechanism by which conscious processing arises in the human brain — and now Anthropic researchers have discovered a similar workspace inside their large language model ! www.anthropic.com/research/glo...

anthropic.com

A global workspace in language models

Interpretability research on Claude's internal thoughts.

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Reposted by Scott McFarnell

Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Some really interesting research from Anthropic that AI models have spontaneously developed a workspace that "appears to support the functions associated with conscious access" Demo of how this works: www.neuronpedia.org/qwen3.6-27b/... Research: www.anthropic.com/research/glo...

neuronpedia.org

Jacobian Lens – Qwen3.6-27B

Revealing a Global Workspace in Language Models

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

“A Fire Upon the Deep” by Vernor Vinge. How about a movie version with Domhnall Gleeson and Zendaya?