I am a scientist by vocation (and also by profession), in particular a biologist. Entangled with this calling is an equally deep interest in epistemology (specifically the warrant of inductive inference). The kinds of scientific explanations I find satisfying are quantitative (often statistical) models or theories that parsimoniously account for empirical biological observations in normative (functional, teleological) terms.

My degrees (BS, PhD) are in biology but my background is interdisciplinary, including also philosophy, psychology, mathematics/​statistics, and computer science/​machine learning. For the last few decades I have been researching the neurobiology of sensory perception, decision-making, and value-based choice in animals (including humans) and in models.

Now and then I get fascinated by something that isn’t obviously related to my existing domain, sometimes leading to semi-expertise and/​or semi-professional activity in seemingly random other domains, and occasionally leading to an outright career change. At the moment that topic I’m fascinated by is AI-alignment, which brings me here.

I consider myself a visitor to your forum, in that my context is mainly from without.

Social media are anathema to me, but this forum seems to be an outlier.