Articles
Infographics
Podcast
Projects & Outreach
Multilingual
Support Us
- Patreon
- Wall of Thanks
Glossary
About KN
Shop

Knowing Neurons

Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
LinkedIn
Spotify
Mail

Articles
Infographics
Podcast
Projects & Outreach
Multilingual
- Spanish
- German
- French
Support Us
- Patreon
- Wall of Thanks
Glossary
About KN
Shop

Philosophy

A Full Dive

January 10, 2023January 10, 2023 John Zhou Brain-computer interface, decoder, Technology, virtual reality

An essay by John Zhou On an overcast afternoon in November, 2022, a teenage boy pages through a glossy video game manual in his bedroom in the Saitama prefecture of… Read more

Big Ideas Consciousness Philosophy

Do animals feel empathy?

September 20, 2021January 11, 2022 Mariella Careaga Animal, Behavior, Emotion, Empathy, Fear, feeling, Pain, social, Theory of mind

From a dad hugging his daughter who lost a sports game to a husband trying to alleviate his wife’s distress by listening to her, humans have the capacity to adopt… Read more

Big Ideas Philosophy

The Free Energy Principle: What might be the next biggest revolution in science

August 16, 2021October 23, 2021 Arielle Hogan Free Energy Principle, Machine Learning, philosophy

"Paraphrasing Einstein, everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." Take everything you know, everything you believe, and everything about life and existence. What does it all… Read more

Big Ideas Language Philosophy Sensation and Perception

50 Shades of Green – How Language Shapes our Color Perception

August 2, 2021October 18, 2021 Zoe Dobler Color, Color Vision, language, native language, Perception, Vision

While writing this article, I am lying in the grass, which is as green as the caipirinha I am drinking under the blue sky. This sounds great, doesn’t it? I’m… Read more

Big Ideas Consciousness Did You Know? Evolution of Cognition Joel's Pick Neuro News Philosophy

How Floating in Darkness Takes the Body off the Mind

June 8, 2021June 8, 2021 Joel Frohlich Anxiety, Awareness, Brain Awareness, brain imaging, Cognition, Consciousness, Default mode network, fMRI, Psychology

What happens when your mind disconnects from all outside sensations? First, you undress, put in earplugs, and step into a floatation tank, the water warmed to the temperature of your… Read more

Feature image depicting a brain in the center of a circle with a visual illusion background. On the left is a hand, palm up, holding a heart. On the right, another hand is tentatively reaching out to grab it. Designed by Alexa Erdogan.

Big Ideas Culture Philosophy Sensation and Perception

Understanding Visual Illusions Can Make Us More Empathetic

April 8, 2020April 8, 2020 McKenna Becker Bias, Blind spot, Cognition, Empathy, Illusion, Neuroplasticity, Optic nerve, Perception, philosophy, Photoreceptor, Politics, R.L. Gregory, Reality, Retina, Stroop Test, Top-Down Processing, V.S. Ramachandran, Visual Illusions

Philosophers and neuroscientists agree that if there is an objective reality, human beings can’t perceive it: philosophers refer to objective reality as a perception independent of any conscious awareness. Neuroscientists… Read more

Big Ideas Consciousness Philosophy

Measuring Consciousness in Bits

August 1, 2018August 1, 2018 DanielToker Brain, Claude Shannon, Communication, Consciousness, David Chalmers, Entropy, Giulio Tononi, Information, Information theory, Integrated Information Theory, Neuroscience, philosophy, Psychology, Research, Science, Sensory experience

Consciousness is an ambiguous concept. It can mean a lot of different things, depending on the context. For example, I can say that I am conscious of something, as in, “I am… Read more

Big Ideas Consciousness Interviews Neuro SciFi Philosophy Podcast

[Podcast] Uploading the Human Brain

July 19, 2018July 19, 2018 Alexa Erdogan Alzheimer, Alzheimer's, Alzheimer’s disease, Brain, Calcium imaging, Cnidarians, connectome, Consciousness, Cortex, EEG, Epilepsy, Interview, Jurrasic Park, Knowing Neurons, LEGO, long term depression, Long-term potentiation, LTD, LTP, Microscopy, Neuron, Neuroscience, Neurotransmitters, Parkinson's, Parkinson's Disease, Research, Sci-fi, Science, Science Fiction, SOMA, Upload

n a brand new episode of the Knowing Neurons podcast, we explore the concept of “mind uploading”. How would something like a mind upload really work?… Read more

Big Ideas Brain Books Consciousness Philosophy

The Strange Order of Things: Book Review

May 16, 2018May 17, 2018 Gabrielle Torre Antonio Damasio, Bacteria, Consciousness, Culture, Emotion, Evolution, homeostasis, reason, valence

ow do emotions construct human culture? Is culture uniquely human at all? Hard questions, but some tackled nonetheless by renowned neuroscientist Antonio Damasio in his latest book, The Strange… Read more

Big Ideas Consciousness Philosophy

Consciousness: The Final Frontier

February 21, 2018February 21, 2018 Joel Frohlich Anesthesia, Brain, Cerebellum, Cerebral Cortex, complexity, Conscious, Consciousness, Cortex, Death, Evolution, Giulio Tononi, Human, Information, Integrated Information Theory, Lesions, Life, Neurons, Neurophilosophy, philosophy, Qualia, Seizure, Sleep, Solipsism, Systems, Thomas Nagel, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulaion, Zombies

When I walk through my kitchen, I smell fresh food and feel warmth radiating off of it. These internal, subjective experiences are called qualia. I assume that my refrigerator, my… Read more

Big Ideas Consciousness Philosophy

The emergence of a hive mind: Should we worry?

January 31, 2018February 3, 2018 DanielToker Brain, brain-to-brain communication, Consciousness, Hive Mind, Integrated Information Theory, Memory, Neuroscience, Prefrontal Cortex, Tononi

he term “hive mind” refers to the apparent intelligence that emerges at the group level in some social species, particularly insects like honeybees and ants. An individual honeybee might not… Read more

Big Ideas German Multilingual Neuroscience Technologies Philosophy

Is Neuroimaging Just Modern Phrenology?

November 29, 2017August 6, 2021 Jens Foell Amygdala, Cesare Lombroso, fMRI, fMRT, Franz Joseph Gall, Fusiform face area, fusiform gyrus, Germany, MRI, Neuroimaging, phenology, Phrenologie, pseudoscience, Pseudowissenschaft, racism, Rassismus, Scheinkorrelationen, somatosensory cortex, spurious correlation, TMS, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulaion

You might have heard the term ‘phrenology’ thrown around, usually in the context of pseudoscience and racism. Or, if you’ve heard discussions about the Quentin Tarantino movie Django Unchained, it… Read more

Artificial Intelligence French Multilingual Neuro SciFi Philosophy

Will Artificial Intelligence Fall in Love?

November 15, 2017August 6, 2021 Gabrielle Torre AI, androïdes, androids, Artificial Intelligence, artificiellement intelligents, cortical-subcortical networks, Dolores Test, Emotion, facteur g, g factor, Intelligence, L'émotion, l'intelligence, Love, Luiz Pessoa, Philip K. Dick, PKD, réseaux cortico-sous-corticaux, Science Fiction, Westworld

In a few months, millions of viewers will return to Westworld, the HBO original series about artificially intelligent androids inhabiting a Western theme park. The show, based on a 1973… Read more

Big Ideas Consciousness Philosophy

Our Illusory Sense of Agency Has a Deeply Important Social Purpose

September 29, 2017October 6, 2017 Chris Frith agency, choice, Consciousness, Epicurus, Free Will, Illusion, Mopan Maya, morality, Perception, philosophy, stoic

’m trying to concentrate on writing this piece, but my two grandchildren in the room next door have stopped making paper aeroplanes and started arguing. ‘You kicked me,’ yells Freya.… Read more

Big Ideas Philosophy

Chaos Rules All

August 10, 2017August 11, 2017 Joel Frohlich #greatamericaneclipse, Basel, Butterfly Effect, Chaos, Chaos theory, eclipse, Edmund Halley, Great American Eclipse, Jean Tinguely, Lorenz, Mercury, Méta-Matics, solar eclipse, solar system, Tinguely, Tinguely Museum, Walter J Freeman III

ature is so predictable. Or is it? On Monday, August 21, 2017, thousands will travel to see the first total solar eclipse in the contiguous United States since 1979. Peering… Read more

Big Ideas Consciousness Philosophy Sensation and Perception

We Are All Brains in Vats

June 28, 2017September 24, 2017 DanielToker Brain in a Vat, Consciousness, Gilbert Harmanm, Hallucination, Illusion, Perception, Rene Descartes, The Matrix

The Matrix made all of us ask the same disturbing questions: How do I know that the world I see, hear, and touch is real? Can I prove that I’m… Read more

Big Ideas Consciousness Philosophy

Why panpsychism fails to solve the mystery of consciousness

June 14, 2017June 30, 2017 Keith Frankish Consciousness, David Chalmers, hard problem of consciousness, panpsychism, philosophy, philosophy of mind

Is consciousness everywhere? Is it a basic feature of the Universe, at the very heart of the tiniest subatomic particles? Such an idea – panpsychism as it is known –… Read more

Big Ideas Consciousness Philosophy

Is there Consciousness in Everything?

June 7, 2017June 30, 2017 Philip Geoff Aeon, Consciousness, Intrinsic, Nature, panpsychism, philosophy

Common sense tells us that only living things have an inner life. Rabbits and tigers and mice have feelings, sensations and experiences; tables and rocks and molecules do not. Panpsychists… Read more

Big Ideas Neuro SciFi Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders Neuroscience Technologies Philosophy

The Ultimate Thought Experiment Part III: Flowers for Algernon

May 31, 2017June 29, 2022 Joel Frohlich Camp Concentration, Charlie Gordon, CRISPR, Daniel Keyes, Experiment, Flowers for Algernon, Intelligence, IQ, Louis Sacchetti, Nootropics, phenylketonuria, Science Fiction, Thomas M. Disch, Thought

In Part II of this series, we considered artificial intelligent in the context of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel and Stanley Kubrik’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey. In Space Odyssey, intelligence… Read more

Artificial Intelligence Big Ideas Learning and Memory Neuro SciFi Philosophy

The Ultimate Thought Experiment Part II: 2001: A Space Odyssey

May 17, 2017October 29, 2017 Joel Frohlich 2001: A Space Odyssey, AI, Arthur C. Clarke, Artificial Intelligence, Deep Blue, DeepFace, Douglas Hofstadter, Evolution, Facebook, Garry Kasparov, Godel Escher Bach, HAL 9000, Hebb's rule, neural network, Stanley Kubrick, Technology, Turing Test

In our previous post, we considered the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in the context of a thought experiment: a thinking tool used by scientists and… Read more

Artificial Intelligence Big Ideas Consciousness Neuro SciFi Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders Philosophy

The Ultimate Thought Experiment Part I: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

May 3, 2017October 29, 2017 Joel Frohlich AI, android, Artificial Intelligence, Blade Runner, China brain, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Gedankenexperiment, Graham Sleight, Hans Christian Oersted, mood organ, Ned Block, Philip K. Dick, pupillometry, Science Fiction, thought experiment

Let’s imagine something crazy. What if each person in China was ordered to simulate a neuron in a brain, making an enormous “China brain?” Every participant in this grand experiment… Read more

Did You Know? Learning and Memory Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders Philosophy

Can Neuroscience Explain the Mandela Effect?

February 1, 2017April 18, 2019 Caitlin Aamodt Alternative, Bear, Berenstain, Berenstein, Caitlin Aamodt, Cat, Confabulation, Effect, Engram, Fact, Facts, False, fMRI, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Hippocampus, Kayleen Schreiber, Kazaam, Mandela, Memory, Parallel, Prefrontal Cortex, Reality, Reconsolidation, Schema, Schrodinger, Sinbad, Universe

Would you trust a memory if it felt as real as all your others? And other people confirmed they remember it, too? What if the memory turned out to be… Read more

Big Ideas Brain Basics Interviews Philosophy

Does Free Will Exist?

April 27, 2016July 10, 2017 Joel Frohlich Addiction, Alexander Batthyany, algorithm, Arthur Schopenhauer, Benjamin Libet, Brain, cellular automata, Daniel Dennett, determinism, Dice, Dopamine, EEG, Fate, Free Will, Huntington’s disease, Jack the Ripper, John-Dylan Haynes, Libet, Michael Gazzaniga, neurodegenerative, Nucleus accumbens, Philip K. Dick, Pierre-Simon Laplace, quantum indeterminacy

It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon. Professor Freeman is enjoying the Southern California weather on Professor Domino’s patio. Domino: Will it be Coke or Pepsi, Dr. Freeman? Freeman: That’s an easy… Read more

Big Ideas Brain Basics Did You Know? Neuroscience Technologies Philosophy Popular Articles

How Do We Know? The Value of Scientific Models.

February 24, 2016July 10, 2017 Joel Frohlich Action Potential, DNA, EEG, Hodgkin and Huxley, inverse-source localization, Math, Mathematical, mathematics, Model, modeling, NASA, planet, planet ix, theoretical, theory, Theory of mind, Truth, watson and crick

Last month, astronomers announced the prediction of a new giant planet in our solar system dubbed Planet IX, a genuine ninth planet with ten times the mass of Earth. The… Read more

Brain Books Consciousness Philosophy

Double Book Review: The Emperor’s New Mind and Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

January 13, 2016July 10, 2017 Joel Frohlich Artificial Intelligence, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Book, Brain book, Can machines think, cognitive science, Douglas Hofstader, Escher, Gödel, Hofstadter, Is the brain a computer, Kurt Gödel, logic, mathematician, mathematics, mind, Neuron, paradox, physicist, quantum, riddle, Roger Penrose, Shadows of the Mind, Stuart Hammeroff, The Emperor's New Mind, theorem, Tubulin

“A barber (who is a man) shaves all and only those men who do not shave themselves. Does he shave himself?” If you can’t solve the above riddle, don’t worry… Read more

Big Ideas Brain Basics Consciousness Did You Know? Philosophy

Ghost in the Machine: The Neuroscience of Consciousness

March 4, 2015July 10, 2017 Joel Frohlich A measure for brain complexity: relating functional segregation and integration in the nervous system, A universe of consciousness: how matter becomes imagination, An information integration theory of consciousness, Brain, Cerebellum, Consciousness, Cortex, Edelman, EEG, Giulio Tononi, Idea, IIT, Integrated Information Theory, Neuroscience, Phi, Seizure, Thought, Tononi

Some questions cannot be addressed by science. Like parallel universes, the consciousness of others is not something that can be directly observed, measured, or experienced. Rene Descartes famously said, “I… Read more

About Us

We strive to make neuroscience accessible to anyone interested in learning about the brain. Here, you can delve into the mind via stories, infographics, interviews, and more!

Learn more about who we are, what we do, and why we do it.

Contact us

Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
LinkedIn
Spotify
Mail

Subscribe to our Newsletter!