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This paper exploits the fact that the variability in the inter-spike intervals, in the spike train issuing from a neuron, carries substantial information regarding the input to the neuron. A framework for neuronal information processing is…
We explore cosmological consequences of two quintessence models in which the current cosmic acceleration is a transient phenomenon. We argue that one of them (in which the EoS parameter switches from freezing to thawing regimes) may…
Active Inference (ActInf) is an emerging theory that explains perception and action in biological agents, in terms of minimizing a free energy bound on Bayesian surprise. Goal-directed behavior is elicited by introducing prior beliefs on…
Enormous questions still loom for the emerging science of spontaneous thought: what, exactly, is spontaneous thought? Why does our brain engage in spontaneous forms of thinking, and when is this most likely to occur? And perhaps the…
Historical sciences like evolutionary biology reconstruct past events by using the traces that the past has bequeathed to the present. The Markov Chain Convergence Theorem and the Data Processing Inequality describe how the mutual…
Creativity, defined as the tendency to generate or recognize new ideas or alternatives and to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, is too vast a horizon to be summed up in such a simple sentence. The extreme abstractness…
The set of solutions of random constraint satisfaction problems (zero energy groundstates of mean-field diluted spin glasses) undergoes several structural phase transitions as the amount of constraints is increased. This set first breaks…
Because human cognition is creative and socially situated, knowledge accumulates, diffuses, and gets applied in new contexts, generating cultural analogs of phenomena observed in population genetics such as adaptation and drift. It is…
Latent space is rapidly emerging as a native substrate for language-based models. While modern systems are still commonly understood through explicit token-level generation, an increasing body of work shows that many critical internal…
Creative processes are typically divided into three types: combinatorial, exploratory, and transformational. Here, we provide a graphical theory of transformational scientific creativity, synthesizing Boden's insight that transformational…
This paper explores foundational questions about the relationship of qualia to natural selection. The primary result is a derivation of specific formal conditions under which structural systems subject to natural selection can convey…
A central challenge in statistical inference is the presence of confounding variables that may distort observed associations between treatment and outcome. Conventional "causal" methods, grounded in assumptions such as ignorability, exclude…
We analyze the emergence of diffractive focusing in the transition from discrete to continuous space-time variables. Three types of dynamical equations are studied in a top-to-bottom approach, starting with the most general system. First we…
Most educational literature on conceptual change concerns the process by which introductory students acquire scientific knowledge. However, with modern developments in science and technology, the social significance of learning successive…
The recent Letter by Wissner-Gross and Freer [1] proposes a relationship between intelligence and entropy maximization based on a causal generalization of entropic forces over configuration space paths, which may beautifully induce…
In complex systems, the interplay between nonlinear and stochastic dynamics, e.g., J. Monod's necessity and chance, gives rise to an evolutionary process in Darwinian sense, in terms of discrete jumps among attractors, with punctuated…
Cosmological scenarios wherein the cumulative number of spontaneously formed, cognitively impaired, disembodied transient observers is vastly larger than the corresponding number of atypical `ordinary observers' (OOs) formed in the…
We show how the shared information between the past and future---the excess entropy---derives from the components of directional information stored in the present---the predictive and retrodictive causal states. A detailed proof allows us…
Socio-cognitive action reproduces and changes both social and cognitive structures. The analytical distinction between these dimensions of structure provides us with richer models of scientific development. In this study, I assume that (i)…
P.W. Anderson proposed the concept of complexity in order to describe the emergence and growth of macroscopic collective patterns out of the simple interactions of many microscopic agents. In the physical sciences this paradigm was…