Posts in Incubator
Bayesians Still Don't Learn from Conditionals

One of the open questions in Bayesian epistemology is how to rationally learn from indicative conditionals (Douven, 2016). Eva et al. (2019) propose a strategy to resolve this question. They claim that their strategy provides a "uniquely rational response to any given learning scenario". We show that their updating strategy is neither very general nor always rational. Even worse, we generalize their strategy and show that it still fails. Bad news for the Bayesians.

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Polychrony and the process view of computation

Some realistic models of neural spiking take into account spike timing, yet the practical relevance of spike timing is often unclear. I show that polychronous networks reflect a distinct organisational principle from notions of pluripotency, redundancy, or re-use, and argue that properly understanding this phenomenon requires a shift to a time-sensitive, process-based view of computation.

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Templeton World Charity Foundation Grant Awarded.

Colin Klein (ANU), Andrew Barron (Macquarie) and Marta Halina (Cambridge) have been awarded a grant to study "The major transitions in the evolution of cognition" from the Templeton World Charity Foundation. This $1M USD grant will fund research into the major shifts in computational organisation that allowed evolving brains to process information in new ways. Researchers at the ANU, led by CI Klein, will explore the philosophical foundations of computational neuroscience.

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