 |
Brain InspiredWhere Neuroscience and AI Converge Author: Paul Middlebrooks
Neuroscience and artificial intelligence work better together. Brain inspired is a celebration and exploration of the ideas driving our progress to understand intelligence. I interview experts about their work at the interface of neuroscience, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, philosophy, psychology, and more: the symbiosis of these overlapping fields, how they inform each other, where they differ, what the past brought us, and what the future brings. Topics include computational neuroscience, supervised machine learning, unsupervised learning, reinforcement learning, deep learning, convolutional and recurrent neural networks, decision-making science, AI agents, backpropagation, credit assignment, neuroengineering, neuromorphics, emergence, philosophy of mind, consciousness, general AI, spiking neural networks, data science, and a lot more. The podcast is not produced for a general audience. Instead, it aims to educate, challenge, inspire, and hopefully entertain those interested in learning more about neuroscience and AI. Language: en-us Genres: Natural Sciences, Science, Technology Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
Listen Now...
BI 248 Andrea Hiott: The Navigational Approach to the Mind
Tuesday, 20 October, 2026
Support the show to get full episodes, full archive, and join the Discord community. The Transmitter is an online publication that aims to deliver useful information, insights and tools to build bridges across neuroscience and advance research. Visit thetransmitter.org to explore the latest neuroscience news and perspectives, written by journalists and scientists. Read more about our partnership. Sign up for Brain Inspired email alerts to be notified every time a new Brain Inspired episode is released. To explore more neuroscience news and perspectives, visit thetransmitter.org. Andrea Hiott is a philosopher at Universität Heidelberg, but she has various degrees across philosophy and neuroscience. You may know her from her podcast Love and Philosophy, or her Way-making substack, or her writings elsewhere. Through all her work runs a central theme, that we need to go beyond dichotomous thinking and learn to hold paradoxes as they are. Holding Paradox is the title of her new book. The full title is Holding Paradox: The Navigational Approach to Mind, and that subtitle, the navigational approach, is the term Andrea uses for her version of what should replace the current computational metaphor of the mind. In the book, Andrea uses the rich history of research in a particular brain area, the hippocampus, to illustrate what holding paradox is and what the navigational approach is. The hippocampus is a good example to use, because it has two parallel histories- one as the seat of our memory, and another as a cognitive map, how we move through the world and how we move through our thoughts. Andrea's website. Book: Holding Paradox: The Navigational Approach to Mind Podcast: Love and Philosophy Substack: Way-making Radical Embodied Relation at any Scale, from Remembering to Navigating. 0:00 - Intro 3:01 - Creating vs criticizing 5:25 - Holding paradox 9:04 - Neuroscience and philosophy 11:42 - Hippocampus and movement 18:05 - Computational metaphor 30:52 - Ways of doing science 43:25 - Why is now the time? 51:34 - Navigational mind and AI 1:09:27 - Perspectivalism vs holding paradox 1:21:31 - Consciousness 1:25:38 - How to be alive 1:29:26 - Holding paradox community?
