Paul Cisek's guest appearances

Paul Cisek

Brain Inspired

Life Along The Streetcar

Mind & Matter

James FitzGerald

Jessica Thompson

David Rosen

Ryan Poplin

Blake Richards

Terrence Sejnowski

David Ferrucci

Raia Hadsell

Melanie Mitchell

Matt Smith

Alison Gopnik

Brian Christian

Robert Wilson

Anil Seth

Jeff Hawkins

OwlTail

Nick talks to Dr. Paul Cisek, a neuroscientist at the University of Montreal who studies sensorimotor control &amp; decision making in primates. They discuss: the evolution of the brain from the earliest nervous systems to humans; metabolism &amp; state control; the evolution of behavior; sensation, perception, cognition, decision making &amp; consciousness; language &amp; representation; why neuroscience needs evolutionary thinking; and more.Support the showSign up for the free weekly Mind &amp; Matter newsletter:[https://mindandmatter.substack.com/?sort=top]Learn how you can further support the podcast: [https://mindandmatter.substack.com/p/how-to-support-mind-and-matter]Become a Premium Subscriber to access full content library, including full premium episodes:[https://mindandmatter.substack.com/subscribe?utm_source=menu&amp;simple=true&amp;next=https%3A%2F%2Fmindandmatter.substack.com%2F]Try the Lumen device to optimize your metabolism for weight loss or athletic performance. Use code MIND for $50 off:[https://www.lumen.me/shop?fid=8731&amp;utm_source=influencer&amp;utm_medium=influencer&amp;discount=MIND]

Nick talks to Dr. Paul Cisek, a neuroscientist at the University of Montreal who studies sensorimotor control &amp; decision making in primates. They discuss: the evolution of the brain from the earliest nervous systems to humans; metabolism &amp; state control; the evolution of behavior; sensation, perception, cognition, decision making &amp; consciousness; language &amp; representation; why neuroscience needs evolutionary thinking; and more.<a href="https://mindandmatter.substack.com/p/how-to-support-mind-and-matter" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support the show</a>Sign up for the free weekly Mind &amp; Matter <a href="https://mindandmatter.substack.com/?sort=top" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">newsletter</a>: [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&amp;redir_token=QUFFLUhqbDc3YVZvaGtFZFRZS2RUYy03ajZSbld6NFZ2QXxBQ3Jtc0tta2dnSXdycFdHV3ZXVE9yRExNcDBTM2ZzMWZpbFNseUMwQUFtZk1XUEk4cExBSUduZE9EcVFncjJsZVN2Z1E5dG1EQkVlanBUVlhmRUUtcGNNZldEYTZDUGZ1aUpHXzVETGJtN2pxR0twOEFmVUhCQQ&amp;q=https%3A%2F%2Fmindandmatter.substack.com%2F" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://mindandmatter.substack.com/?sort=top</a>] Learn how you can further <a href="https://mindandmatter.substack.com/p/how-to-support-mind-and-matter" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">support the podcast</a>: [<a href="https://mindandmatter.substack.com/p/how-to-support-mind-and-matter" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://mindandmatter.substack.com/p/how-to-support-mind-and-matter</a>] Become a <a href="https://mindandmatter.substack.com/subscribe?utm_source=menu&amp;simple=true&amp;next=https%3A%2F%2Fmindandmatter.substack.com%2F" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Premium Subscriber</a> to access full content library, including full premium episodes: [<a href="https://mindandmatter.substack.com/subscribe?utm_source=menu&amp;simple=true&amp;next=https%3A%2F%2Fmindandmatter.substack.com%2F" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://mindandmatter.substack.com/subscribe?utm_source=menu&amp;simple=true&amp;next=https%3A%2F%2Fmindandmatter.substack.com%2F</a>] Try the <a href="https://www.lumen.me/shop?fid=8731&amp;utm_source=influencer&amp;utm_medium=influencer&amp;discount=MIND" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lumen device</a> to optimize your metabolism for weight loss or athletic performance. Use code MIND for $50 off: [<a href="https://www.lumen.me/shop?fid=8731&amp;utm_source=influencer&amp;utm_medium=influencer&amp;discount=MIND" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.lumen.me/shop?fid=8731&amp;utm_source=influencer&amp;utm_medium=influencer&amp;discount=MIND</a>]

Evolution of Complex Behavior, Perception, Cognition, Consciousness & the Brain | Paul Cisek | #107

In this second part of my conversion with Paul (listen to the first part), we continue our discussion about how to understand brains as feedback control mechanisms - controlling our internal state and extending that control into the world - and how Paul thinks the key to understanding intelligence is to trace our evolutionary past through phylogenetic refinement. Paul's lab website.(A few of) his papers we discuss or mention:Resynthesizing behavior through phylogenetic refinement.Navigating the affordance landscape: Feedback control as a process model of behavior and cognition.Neural Mechanisms for Interacting with a World Full of Action Choices.Books Paul recommends about these topics:The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception by Gibson.Brains Through Time: A Natural History of Vertebrates by Striedter and Northcutt.The Neurobiology of the Prefrontal Cortex: Anatomy, Evolution, And The Origin Of Insight by Passingham and Wise.The Evolution of Memory Systems: Ancestors, Anatomy, and Adaptations by Murray, Wise, and Graham.The ancient origins of consciousness:How the brain created experience by Feinberg and Mallatt.Catching Ourselves in the Act: Situated Activity, Interactive Emergence, Evolution, and Human Thought by Hendriks-Jansen.In case, like me, you didn’t know what an amphioxus is… here you go.

In this second part of my conversion with Paul (<a href="https://braininspired.co/podcast/66/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">listen to the first part</a>), we continue our discussion about how to understand brains as feedback control mechanisms - controlling our internal state and extending that control into the world - and how Paul thinks the key to understanding intelligence is to trace our evolutionary past through phylogenetic refinement. <ul><li>Paul's lab <a href="http://www.cisek.org/pavel/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">website</a>.</li><li>(A few of) his papers we discuss or mention:<ul><li><a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758/s13414-019-01760-1.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Resynthesizing behavior through phylogenetic refinement</a>.</li><li><a href="http://www.cisek.org/pavel/Pubs/PezzuloCisek2016.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Navigating the affordance landscape: Feedback control as a process model of behavior and cognition</a>.</li><li><a href="http://www.cisek.org/pavel/Pubs/CisekKalaska2010.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Neural Mechanisms for Interacting with a World Full of Action Choices</a>.</li></ul></li><li>Books Paul recommends about these topics:<ul><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1848725787/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1848725787&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=pmiddlebroo09-20&amp;linkId=656f795b7accc770360ecdb9b2b9641c" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception</a> by Gibson.</li><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195125681/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0195125681&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=pmiddlebroo09-20&amp;linkId=a09f4ead2863a2846838e89b19bd1b94" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Brains Through Time: A Natural History of Vertebrates</a> by Striedter and Northcutt.</li><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0198714696/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=pmiddlebroo09-20&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;creativeASIN=0198714696&amp;linkId=c6bfe97207e46dee7bbae08c047f30c5" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Neurobiology of the Prefrontal Cortex: Anatomy, Evolution, And The Origin Of Insight</a> by Passingham and Wise.</li><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N3QBZBT/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=pmiddlebroo09-20&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;creativeASIN=B01N3QBZBT&amp;linkId=f367611f818372736a50e24603313b11" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Evolution of Memory Systems: Ancestors, Anatomy, and Adaptations</a> by Murray, Wise, and Graham.</li><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EUBRFNE/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=pmiddlebroo09-20&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;creativeASIN=B01EUBRFNE&amp;linkId=3c549e3291c81c6432e2fccd84245a7f" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The ancient origins of consciousness:How the brain created experience</a> by Feinberg and Mallatt.</li><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262082462/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=pmiddlebroo09-20&amp;creative=9325&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;creativeASIN=0262082462&amp;linkId=6d38b34e697419d38d7bc05aae1123d3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Catching Ourselves in the Act: Situated Activity, Interactive Emergence, Evolution, and Human Thought</a> by Hendriks-Jansen.</li></ul></li><li>In case, like me, you didn’t know what an amphioxus is… <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancelet" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here you go</a>.</li></ul>

BI 067 Paul Cisek: Backward Through The Brain

In this first part of our conversation, Paul and I discuss his approach to understanding how the brain (and intelligence) works. Namely, he believes we are fundamentally action and movement oriented - all of our behavior and cognition is based on controlling ourselves and our environment through feedback control mechanisms, and basically all neural activity should be understood through that lens. This contrasts with the view that we serially perceive the environment, make internal representations of what we perceive, do some cognition on those representations, and transform that cognition into decisions about how to move. From that premise, Paul also believes the best (and perhaps only) way to understand our current brains is by tracing out the evolutionary steps that took us from our single celled first organisms all the way to us - a process he calls phylogenetic refinement. Paul's lab website.(A few of) his papers we discuss or mention:Resynthesizing behavior through phylogenetic refinement.Navigating the affordance landscape: Feedback control as a process model of behavior and cognition.Neural Mechanisms for Interacting with a World Full of Action Choices.Books Paul recommends about these topics:The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception by Gibson.Brains Through Time: A Natural History of Vertebrates by Striedter and Northcutt.The Neurobiology of the Prefrontal Cortex: Anatomy, Evolution, And The Origin Of Insight by Passingham and Wise.The Evolution of Memory Systems: Ancestors, Anatomy, and Adaptations by Murray, Wise, and Graham.The ancient origins of consciousness:How the brain created experience by Feinberg and Mallatt.Catching Ourselves in the Act: Situated Activity, Interactive Emergence, Evolution, and Human Thought by Hendriks-Jansen.In case, like me, you didn’t know what an amphioxus is… here you go.

In this first part of our conversation, Paul and I discuss his approach to understanding how the brain (and intelligence) works. Namely, he believes we are fundamentally action and movement oriented - all of our behavior and cognition is based on controlling ourselves and our environment through feedback control mechanisms, and basically all neural activity should be understood through that lens. This contrasts with the view that we serially perceive the environment, make internal representations of what we perceive, do some cognition on those representations, and transform that cognition into decisions about how to move. From that premise, Paul also believes the best (and perhaps only) way to understand our current brains is by tracing out the evolutionary steps that took us from our single celled first organisms all the way to us - a process he calls phylogenetic refinement. <ul><li>Paul's lab <a href="http://www.cisek.org/pavel/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">website</a>.</li><li>(A few of) his papers we discuss or mention:<ul><li><a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758/s13414-019-01760-1.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Resynthesizing behavior through phylogenetic refinement</a>.</li><li><a href="http://www.cisek.org/pavel/Pubs/PezzuloCisek2016.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Navigating the affordance landscape: Feedback control as a process model of behavior and cognition</a>.</li><li><a href="http://www.cisek.org/pavel/Pubs/CisekKalaska2010.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Neural Mechanisms for Interacting with a World Full of Action Choices</a>.</li></ul></li><li>Books Paul recommends about these topics:<ul><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1848725787/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1848725787&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=pmiddlebroo09-20&amp;linkId=656f795b7accc770360ecdb9b2b9641c" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception</a> by Gibson.</li><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195125681/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0195125681&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=pmiddlebroo09-20&amp;linkId=a09f4ead2863a2846838e89b19bd1b94" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Brains Through Time: A Natural History of Vertebrates</a> by Striedter and Northcutt.</li><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0198714696/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=pmiddlebroo09-20&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;creativeASIN=0198714696&amp;linkId=c6bfe97207e46dee7bbae08c047f30c5" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Neurobiology of the Prefrontal Cortex: Anatomy, Evolution, And The Origin Of Insight</a> by Passingham and Wise.</li><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N3QBZBT/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=pmiddlebroo09-20&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;creativeASIN=B01N3QBZBT&amp;linkId=f367611f818372736a50e24603313b11" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Evolution of Memory Systems: Ancestors, Anatomy, and Adaptations</a> by Murray, Wise, and Graham.</li><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EUBRFNE/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=pmiddlebroo09-20&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;creativeASIN=B01EUBRFNE&amp;linkId=3c549e3291c81c6432e2fccd84245a7f" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The ancient origins of consciousness:How the brain created experience</a> by Feinberg and Mallatt.</li><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262082462/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=pmiddlebroo09-20&amp;creative=9325&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;creativeASIN=0262082462&amp;linkId=6d38b34e697419d38d7bc05aae1123d3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Catching Ourselves in the Act: Situated Activity, Interactive Emergence, Evolution, and Human Thought</a> by Hendriks-Jansen.</li></ul></li><li>In case, like me, you didn’t know what an amphioxus is… <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancelet" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here you go</a>.</li></ul>

BI 066 Paul Cisek: Forward Through Evolution