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Neuroscience

TagLast edit: 26 Dec 2022 6:16 UTC by Roman Leventov

Neuroscience is a field of study dealing with the structure or function of the brain. It is of particular interest to LessWrong both because it can shed light on AI, and because it is often helpful for rationality. For example, understanding how attentional control works can inform possible solutions.

Some specific theories of neuroscience:

See also:

Matt Botv­inick on the spon­ta­neous emer­gence of learn­ing algorithms

Adam Scholl12 Aug 2020 7:47 UTC
150 points
87 comments5 min readLW link

Book re­view: “A Thou­sand Brains” by Jeff Hawkins

Steven Byrnes4 Mar 2021 5:10 UTC
111 points
18 comments19 min readLW link

Pre­dic­tive Cod­ing has been Unified with Backpropagation

lsusr2 Apr 2021 21:42 UTC
174 points
44 comments2 min readLW link

Book Sum­mary: Con­scious­ness and the Brain

Kaj_Sotala16 Jan 2019 14:43 UTC
149 points
21 comments26 min readLW link1 review

How uniform is the neo­cor­tex?

zhukeepa4 May 2020 2:16 UTC
79 points
23 comments11 min readLW link1 review

Adult Neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis – A Pointed Review

Scott Alexander5 Apr 2018 4:50 UTC
55 points
17 comments11 min readLW link
(slatestarcodex.com)

In­ner Align­ment in Salt-Starved Rats

Steven Byrnes19 Nov 2020 2:40 UTC
137 points
39 comments11 min readLW link2 reviews

Re­search agenda update

Steven Byrnes6 Aug 2021 19:24 UTC
54 points
40 comments7 min readLW link

Book re­view: “The Heart of the Brain: The Hy­potha­la­mus and Its Hor­mones”

Steven Byrnes27 Sep 2022 13:20 UTC
57 points
3 comments18 min readLW link

Book sum­mary: Un­lock­ing the Emo­tional Brain

Kaj_Sotala8 Oct 2019 19:11 UTC
277 points
39 comments21 min readLW link3 reviews

Neu­ral An­neal­ing: Toward a Neu­ral The­ory of Every­thing (cross­post)

Michael Edward Johnson29 Nov 2019 17:31 UTC
83 points
28 comments40 min readLW link3 reviews

A Crash Course in the Neu­ro­science of Hu­man Motivation

lukeprog19 Aug 2011 21:15 UTC
196 points
93 comments38 min readLW link

At­ten­tion con­trol is crit­i­cal for chang­ing/​in­creas­ing/​al­ter­ing motivation

kalla72411 Apr 2012 0:48 UTC
273 points
100 comments7 min readLW link

[Book Re­view] Altered Traits

lsusr23 Sep 2021 0:33 UTC
65 points
12 comments11 min readLW link

The­o­ret­i­cal Neu­ro­science For Align­ment Theory

Cameron Berg7 Dec 2021 21:50 UTC
62 points
19 comments23 min readLW link

Are big brains for pro­cess­ing sen­sory in­put?

lsusr10 Dec 2021 7:08 UTC
43 points
20 comments3 min readLW link

Pre­dic­tive cod­ing and mo­tor control

Steven Byrnes23 Feb 2020 2:04 UTC
22 points
3 comments4 min readLW link

Pre­dic­tive cod­ing & depression

Steven Byrnes3 Jan 2020 2:38 UTC
25 points
9 comments7 min readLW link

Neu­ral Ba­sis for Global Workspace Theory

Hazard22 Jun 2020 4:19 UTC
31 points
9 comments8 min readLW link

Subagents, neu­ral Tur­ing ma­chines, thought se­lec­tion, and blindspots

Kaj_Sotala6 Aug 2019 21:15 UTC
77 points
3 comments12 min readLW link

God Help Us, Let’s Try To Un­der­stand Fris­ton On Free Energy

Scott Alexander5 Mar 2018 6:00 UTC
47 points
43 comments14 min readLW link
(slatestarcodex.com)

Re­search snap-shot: ques­tion about Global Workspace Theory

Hazard15 Jun 2020 21:00 UTC
21 points
12 comments7 min readLW link

The Hu­man’s Hid­den Utility Func­tion (Maybe)

lukeprog23 Jan 2012 19:39 UTC
66 points
90 comments3 min readLW link

Why I Moved from AI to Neu­ro­science, or: Upload­ing Worms

davidad13 Apr 2012 7:10 UTC
67 points
58 comments1 min readLW link

IJMC Mind Upload­ing Spe­cial Is­sue published

Kaj_Sotala22 Jun 2012 11:58 UTC
19 points
12 comments1 min readLW link

[Question] Ex­plana­tory power of C el­e­gans neu­ral models

sjonany27 Mar 2020 17:30 UTC
6 points
0 comments1 min readLW link

Neu­ro­science ba­sics for LessWrongians

ChrisHallquist26 Jul 2012 5:10 UTC
129 points
102 comments13 min readLW link

The Brain as a Univer­sal Learn­ing Machine

jacob_cannell24 Jun 2015 21:45 UTC
166 points
170 comments19 min readLW link

Cog­ni­tive En­hancers: Mechanisms And Tradeoffs

Scott Alexander23 Oct 2018 18:40 UTC
42 points
3 comments8 min readLW link
(slatestarcodex.com)

Gary Mar­cus vs Cor­ti­cal Uniformity

Steven Byrnes28 Jun 2020 18:18 UTC
18 points
0 comments8 min readLW link

Build­ing brain-in­spired AGI is in­finitely eas­ier than un­der­stand­ing the brain

Steven Byrnes2 Jun 2020 14:13 UTC
51 points
14 comments7 min readLW link

In­ner al­ign­ment in the brain

Steven Byrnes22 Apr 2020 13:14 UTC
76 points
16 comments16 min readLW link

Book Re­view: The Root of Thought

Scott Alexander22 Jul 2010 8:58 UTC
60 points
91 comments5 min readLW link

Hu­man in­stincts, sym­bol ground­ing, and the blank-slate neocortex

Steven Byrnes2 Oct 2019 12:06 UTC
58 points
23 comments11 min readLW link

Jeff Hawk­ins on neu­ro­mor­phic AGI within 20 years

Steven Byrnes15 Jul 2019 19:16 UTC
167 points
24 comments12 min readLW link

Refer­ences & Re­sources for LessWrong

XiXiDu10 Oct 2010 14:54 UTC
156 points
106 comments20 min readLW link

It’s Bayes All The Way Up

Scott Alexander12 Sep 2016 13:35 UTC
30 points
0 comments12 min readLW link

Words as Men­tal Paint­brush Handles

Eliezer Yudkowsky1 Mar 2008 23:58 UTC
44 points
75 comments3 min readLW link

Con­cept Safety: Pro­duc­ing similar AI-hu­man con­cept spaces

Kaj_Sotala14 Apr 2015 20:39 UTC
50 points
45 comments8 min readLW link

The In­tense World The­ory of Autism

Steven Byrnes27 Sep 2021 13:23 UTC
91 points
28 comments14 min readLW link

Emo­tional valence vs RL re­ward: a video game analogy

Steven Byrnes3 Sep 2020 15:28 UTC
12 points
6 comments4 min readLW link

How Much Com­pu­ta­tional Power Does It Take to Match the Hu­man Brain?

habryka12 Sep 2020 6:38 UTC
44 points
1 comment1 min readLW link
(www.openphilanthropy.org)

My com­pu­ta­tional frame­work for the brain

Steven Byrnes14 Sep 2020 14:19 UTC
150 points
26 comments13 min readLW link1 review

“Lit­tle glimpses of em­pa­thy” as the foun­da­tion for so­cial emotions

Steven Byrnes22 Oct 2020 11:02 UTC
31 points
1 comment5 min readLW link

Su­per­vised learn­ing of out­puts in the brain

Steven Byrnes26 Oct 2020 14:32 UTC
28 points
9 comments10 min readLW link

Com­ments on “The Sin­gu­lar­ity is Nowhere Near”

Steven Byrnes16 Mar 2021 23:59 UTC
50 points
6 comments8 min readLW link

Su­per­vised learn­ing in the brain, part 4: com­pres­sion /​ filtering

Steven Byrnes5 Dec 2020 17:06 UTC
12 points
0 comments5 min readLW link

Con­ser­vatism in neo­cor­tex-like AGIs

Steven Byrnes8 Dec 2020 16:37 UTC
22 points
5 comments8 min readLW link

The Power of Annealing

meanderingmoose14 Dec 2020 11:02 UTC
25 points
6 comments5 min readLW link

Book Re­view: On In­tel­li­gence by Jeff Hawk­ins (and San­dra Blakeslee)

Rafael Harth29 Dec 2020 19:48 UTC
20 points
7 comments14 min readLW link

Late-talk­ing kids and “Ein­stein syn­drome”

Steven Byrnes3 Feb 2021 15:16 UTC
32 points
27 comments6 min readLW link

Trapped Pri­ors As A Ba­sic Prob­lem Of Rationality

Scott Alexander12 Mar 2021 20:02 UTC
134 points
32 comments14 min readLW link3 reviews

Acetyl­choline = Learn­ing rate (aka plas­tic­ity)

Steven Byrnes18 Mar 2021 13:57 UTC
34 points
4 comments4 min readLW link

Is RL in­volved in sen­sory pro­cess­ing?

Steven Byrnes18 Mar 2021 13:57 UTC
21 points
21 comments5 min readLW link

Against evolu­tion as an anal­ogy for how hu­mans will cre­ate AGI

Steven Byrnes23 Mar 2021 12:29 UTC
46 points
25 comments25 min readLW link

Could billions spa­cially dis­con­nected “Boltz­mann neu­rons” give rise to con­scious­ness?

Szymon Kucharski31 Mar 2021 19:58 UTC
5 points
11 comments2 min readLW link

Big pic­ture of pha­sic dopamine

Steven Byrnes8 Jun 2021 13:07 UTC
60 points
20 comments36 min readLW link

Sup­ple­ment to “Big pic­ture of pha­sic dopamine”

Steven Byrnes8 Jun 2021 13:08 UTC
14 points
2 comments9 min readLW link

Book re­view: “Feel­ing Great” by David Burns

Steven Byrnes9 Jun 2021 13:17 UTC
97 points
12 comments8 min readLW link

Re­ward Is Not Enough

Steven Byrnes16 Jun 2021 13:52 UTC
110 points
19 comments10 min readLW link1 review

A model of de­ci­sion-mak­ing in the brain (the short ver­sion)

Steven Byrnes18 Jul 2021 14:39 UTC
20 points
0 comments3 min readLW link

How is low-la­tency pha­sic dopamine so fast?

Steven Byrnes23 Jul 2021 17:43 UTC
32 points
0 comments3 min readLW link

Neu­ro­science things that con­fuse me right now

Steven Byrnes26 Jul 2021 21:01 UTC
16 points
6 comments9 min readLW link

Value load­ing in the hu­man brain: a worked example

Steven Byrnes4 Aug 2021 17:20 UTC
45 points
2 comments8 min readLW link

Dopamine-su­per­vised learn­ing in mam­mals & fruit flies

Steven Byrnes10 Aug 2021 16:13 UTC
17 points
6 comments8 min readLW link

How to build a mind—neu­ro­science edition

Jan3 Oct 2021 21:45 UTC
17 points
7 comments12 min readLW link
(universalprior.substack.com)

The Power of Reinforcement

lukeprog21 Jun 2012 13:42 UTC
162 points
474 comments4 min readLW link

A con­nec­tomic study of a petas­cale frag­ment of hu­man cere­bral cortex

PointlessOne17 Jan 2022 8:49 UTC
4 points
0 comments1 min readLW link
(vcg.seas.harvard.edu)

Emo­tions = Re­ward Functions

jpyykko20 Jan 2022 18:46 UTC
16 points
10 comments5 min readLW link

[In­tro to brain-like-AGI safety] 2. “Learn­ing from scratch” in the brain

Steven Byrnes2 Feb 2022 13:22 UTC
50 points
12 comments25 min readLW link

Med­i­ta­tion and Neu­ro­science, some odds and ends

MarkL8 Feb 2022 1:47 UTC
28 points
12 comments10 min readLW link

[In­tro to brain-like-AGI safety] 3. Two sub­sys­tems: Learn­ing & Steering

Steven Byrnes9 Feb 2022 13:09 UTC
71 points
3 comments24 min readLW link

Me­mory de­cay in hu­man brains from op­tions pric­ing theory

Jalex Stark14 Feb 2022 7:52 UTC
14 points
0 comments7 min readLW link

Es­ti­mat­ing Brain-Equiv­a­lent Com­pute from Image Recog­ni­tion Al­gorithms

Gunnar_Zarncke27 Feb 2022 2:45 UTC
14 points
4 comments2 min readLW link

[In­tro to brain-like-AGI safety] 13. Sym­bol ground­ing & hu­man so­cial instincts

Steven Byrnes27 Apr 2022 13:30 UTC
62 points
15 comments14 min readLW link

Con­fu­sion about neu­ro­science/​cog­ni­tive sci­ence as a dan­ger for AI Alignment

Samuel Nellessen22 Jun 2022 17:59 UTC
2 points
1 comment3 min readLW link
(snellessen.com)

(Link) I’m Miss­ing a Chunk of My Brain

mukashi5 Sep 2022 2:10 UTC
13 points
2 comments1 min readLW link
(www.nytimes.com)

On oxy­tocin-sen­si­tive neu­rons in au­di­tory cortex

Steven Byrnes6 Sep 2022 12:54 UTC
31 points
6 comments12 min readLW link

Quick notes on “mir­ror neu­rons”

Steven Byrnes4 Oct 2022 17:39 UTC
34 points
2 comments2 min readLW link

My take on Ja­cob Can­nell’s take on AGI safety

Steven Byrnes28 Nov 2022 14:01 UTC
63 points
14 comments30 min readLW link

A fu­ture for neuroscience

Mike Johnson19 Aug 2018 23:58 UTC
22 points
12 comments19 min readLW link

[Question] How Does the Hu­man Brain Com­pare to Deep Learn­ing on Sam­ple Effi­ciency?

DragonGod15 Jan 2023 19:49 UTC
10 points
6 comments1 min readLW link

Schizophre­nia as a defi­ciency in long-range cor­tex-to-cor­tex communication

Steven Byrnes1 Feb 2023 19:32 UTC
34 points
28 comments11 min readLW link

Why I’m not into the Free En­ergy Principle

Steven Byrnes2 Mar 2023 19:27 UTC
133 points
38 comments9 min readLW link

Is “FOXP2 speech & lan­guage di­s­or­der” re­ally “FOXP2 fore­brain fine-mo­tor crap­piness”?

Steven Byrnes23 Mar 2023 16:09 UTC
21 points
8 comments4 min readLW link

New cog­ni­tive bias ar­ti­cles on wikipe­dia (up­date)

nerfhammer9 Mar 2012 20:13 UTC
108 points
19 comments1 min readLW link

How spe­cial are hu­man brains among an­i­mal brains?

zhukeepa1 Apr 2020 1:35 UTC
78 points
38 comments7 min readLW link

Alien par­a­site tech­ni­cal guy

PhilGoetz27 Jul 2010 16:51 UTC
66 points
55 comments3 min readLW link

The Neu­ro­science of Desire

lukeprog9 Apr 2011 19:08 UTC
70 points
30 comments10 min readLW link

Con­nec­tion­ism: Model­ing the mind with neu­ral networks

Scott Alexander19 Jul 2011 1:16 UTC
59 points
20 comments8 min readLW link

Solv­ing sleep: just a toe-dipping

Capla30 Jun 2015 19:38 UTC
63 points
35 comments4 min readLW link

If brains are com­put­ers, what kind of com­put­ers are they? (Den­nett tran­script)

Ben Pace30 Jan 2020 5:07 UTC
36 points
15 comments27 min readLW link

The Cog­ni­tive Science of Rationality

lukeprog12 Sep 2011 20:48 UTC
135 points
111 comments15 min readLW link

Lizard Jock­ey­ing for Fun and Profit

ialdabaoth10 Nov 2017 18:51 UTC
24 points
4 comments9 min readLW link

Pre­dic­tive cod­ing = RL + SL + Bayes + MPC

Steven Byrnes10 Dec 2019 11:45 UTC
53 points
8 comments8 min readLW link

The Neu­ro­science of Pleasure

lukeprog27 Mar 2011 23:57 UTC
49 points
17 comments11 min readLW link

[LINK] Claus­trum Stim­u­la­tion Tem­porar­ily Turns Off Con­scious­ness in an oth­er­wise Awake Patient

shminux4 Jul 2014 20:00 UTC
51 points
43 comments1 min readLW link

An­tag­o­niz­ing Opi­oid Re­cep­tors for (Preven­tion of) Fun and Profit

Scott Alexander5 May 2010 14:40 UTC
49 points
35 comments4 min readLW link

Fast Minds and Slow Computers

jacob_cannell5 Feb 2011 10:05 UTC
40 points
91 comments5 min readLW link

Neu­ral Cor­re­lates of Con­scious Access

atucker7 Oct 2011 23:12 UTC
39 points
5 comments4 min readLW link

Analog­i­cal Rea­son­ing and Creativity

jacob_cannell1 Jul 2015 20:38 UTC
38 points
15 comments14 min readLW link

[Question] Inac­cessible finely tuned RNG in hu­mans?

Sandi7 Oct 2020 17:04 UTC
23 points
13 comments1 min readLW link

Book Re­view: Re­in­force­ment Learn­ing by Sut­ton and Barto

billmei20 Oct 2020 19:40 UTC
52 points
3 comments10 min readLW link

Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness

ChristianKl28 Jan 2017 8:58 UTC
13 points
4 comments1 min readLW link
(neurosciencenews.com)

The One That Isn’t There

Annoyance20 Nov 2009 20:10 UTC
18 points
6 comments3 min readLW link

[Question] The Crux of Un­der­stand­ing Writ­ten Text—Text read­ing and inference

JohnCheese20 Feb 2021 22:20 UTC
1 point
1 comment1 min readLW link

Biolog­i­cal Holism: A New Paradigm?

Waddington9 May 2021 22:42 UTC
3 points
9 comments19 min readLW link

Do Hu­mans Want Things?

lukeprog4 Aug 2011 5:00 UTC
40 points
53 comments5 min readLW link

Book Re­view: Be­ing You by Anil Seth

Alexander26 Oct 2021 5:44 UTC
32 points
21 comments11 min readLW link

What are red flags for Neu­ral Net­work suffer­ing?

Marius Hobbhahn8 Nov 2021 12:51 UTC
26 points
15 comments12 min readLW link

In­te­grat­ing Three Models of (Hu­man) Cognition

jbkjr23 Nov 2021 1:06 UTC
29 points
4 comments32 min readLW link

What do we mean when we say the brain com­putes?

Adam Shai31 Jan 2022 3:33 UTC
3 points
5 comments10 min readLW link

[Question] What Should I Do To­day?

Cui18 Mar 2022 16:36 UTC
10 points
5 comments2 min readLW link

A Brief Ex­cur­sion Into Molec­u­lar Neuroscience

Jan10 Apr 2022 17:55 UTC
45 points
8 comments19 min readLW link
(universalprior.substack.com)

Is This Thing Sen­tient, Y/​N?

Thane Ruthenis20 Jun 2022 18:37 UTC
4 points
9 comments7 min readLW link

“Brain en­thu­si­asts” in AI Safety

18 Jun 2022 9:59 UTC
57 points
5 comments10 min readLW link
(universalprior.substack.com)

Brainchild

Alex Beyman1 Oct 2022 20:16 UTC
−1 points
7 comments43 min readLW link

What is Con­scious­ness?

belkarx19 Oct 2022 21:14 UTC
1 point
2 comments2 min readLW link

AI re­searchers an­nounce Neu­roAI agenda

Cameron Berg24 Oct 2022 0:14 UTC
37 points
12 comments6 min readLW link
(arxiv.org)

The limited up­side of interpretability

Peter S. Park15 Nov 2022 18:46 UTC
13 points
11 comments1 min readLW link

Un­pack­ing “Shard The­ory” as Hunch, Ques­tion, The­ory, and Insight

Jacy Reese Anthis16 Nov 2022 13:54 UTC
29 points
9 comments2 min readLW link

[Heb­bian Nat­u­ral Ab­strac­tions] Introduction

21 Nov 2022 20:34 UTC
34 points
3 comments4 min readLW link
(www.snellessen.com)

Avoid­ing Psy­cho­pathic AI

Cameron Berg19 Dec 2022 17:01 UTC
28 points
3 comments20 min readLW link

[Heb­bian Nat­u­ral Ab­strac­tions] Math­e­mat­i­cal Foundations

25 Dec 2022 20:58 UTC
15 points
2 comments6 min readLW link
(www.snellessen.com)

[Question] Re­search ideas (AI In­ter­pretabil­ity & Neu­ro­sciences) for a 2-months project

flux8 Jan 2023 15:36 UTC
3 points
1 comment1 min readLW link

Scal­ing laws vs in­di­vi­d­ual differences

beren10 Jan 2023 13:22 UTC
42 points
21 comments7 min readLW link

Em­pa­thy as a nat­u­ral con­se­quence of learnt re­ward models

beren4 Feb 2023 15:35 UTC
37 points
26 comments13 min readLW link

A re­ply to Byrnes on the Free En­ergy Principle

Roman Leventov3 Mar 2023 13:03 UTC
24 points
16 comments14 min readLW link
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