Seminar of the Mind, Brain and Reasoning PhD Seminar 2021-2022. On line on Zoom. H. 10:00 AM. Abstract There is increasing consensus around the idea that the brain is a predictive machine, which uses an internal generative model to continuously generate predictions, in the service of online action-perception and future-oriented forms of cognition. In this talk, I will present a theoretical and computational perspective on the functioning of the predictive brain, by appealing to the notions of ‘predictive coding’ and ‘active inference’. In particular, I will focus on how the predictive brain may support prospective and future-oriented functions, such as planning and imagination, by temporarily detaching from the action-perception loop. I will highlight two distinct but complementary usages of planning in computational modelling that might be relevant to understand predictive brain functions: planning ‘at decision time’, to support goal-directed behaviour; and ‘in the background’, to learn behavioural policies and to optimize internal models. I will exemplify this distinction by presenting a series of simulations and by reviewing empirical evidence on internally generated sequences of neuronal activity in the hippocampus during online navigation and offline periods. The perspective offered in this talk suggests that the brain's generative model supports predictive and prospective functions even when it is temporarily detached from the action-perception loop; and this might have implications for our understanding of spontaneous brain activity at rest.

Seminar of the Mind, Brain and Reasoning PhD Seminar 2021-2022. On line on Zoom. H. 5-6:15 PM. “Causalism” is sometimes used to pick out the leading conception of action. On this view, having a certain kind of causal history—one that includes the relevant mental events or states—is what makes a behavior an action. In this talk I sketch and motivate a form of causalism that goes beyond the basic causalist view in that it also covers free action. According to “big picture” causalism, having the relevant kind of causal history is both what makes a behavior an action and what makes it a free action. This central thesis provides the skeleton of the view. But I then discuss possible enrichments of the view that focus on the grounds of the relevant causal facts. In particular, I lay out a version of a powers-enriched causalism.

Second Mind, Brain and Reasoning PhD Seminar on line. H. 5:00-6:15 PM.

Third seminar of the Mind, Brain and Reasoning PhD Seminar on line. H. 5:00-6:15 PM.