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The Modularity Debate: How Specialized Is Neural Computation?
Neuroscience

The Modularity Debate: How Specialized Is Neural Computation?

The brain is neither purely modular nor distributed—specialized computations emerge through flexible, reconfigurable network coalitions.

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NeuroTheorist
6 min read
How Brains Implement Analogical Reasoning
Neuroscience

How Brains Implement Analogical Reasoning

The computational architecture enabling your brain to recognize that atoms resemble solar systems and arguments resemble wars

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NeuroTheorist
7 min read
The Hard Problem: Why Explaining Consciousness Requires New Science
Neuroscience

The Hard Problem: Why Explaining Consciousness Requires New Science

Neural mechanisms explain function, but why does any function feel like something? Science may need expansion, not just extension.

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NeuroTheorist
7 min read
How the Brain Solves the Credit Assignment Problem
Neuroscience

How the Brain Solves the Credit Assignment Problem

How does the brain know which synapses to modify when rewards arrive long after actions unfold?

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NeuroTheorist
6 min read
Bayesian Brain: How Neural Circuits Might Implement Probabilistic Inference
Neuroscience

Bayesian Brain: How Neural Circuits Might Implement Probabilistic Inference

How might neurons represent uncertainty, approximate Bayes' theorem, and combine prior expectations with sensory evidence?

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NeuroTheorist
6 min read
How Attractor Dynamics Create Stable Thoughts in Unstable Networks
Neuroscience

How Attractor Dynamics Create Stable Thoughts in Unstable Networks

Why stable thoughts emerge from unreliable neurons through the mathematics of dynamical landscapes

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NeuroTheorist
6 min read
Sparse Coding: Why Your Brain Activates So Few Neurons at Once
Neuroscience

Sparse Coding: Why Your Brain Activates So Few Neurons at Once

Understanding why neural silence speaks volumes about optimal brain computation.

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NeuroTheorist
7 min read
Criticality in Neural Networks: Why Brains Operate at the Edge of Chaos
Neuroscience

Criticality in Neural Networks: Why Brains Operate at the Edge of Chaos

How your brain self-organizes to a narrow computational sweet spot where information processing, sensitivity, and flexibility are simultaneously maximized.

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NeuroTheorist
8 min read
The Free Energy Principle: A Mathematical Theory of Everything Neural
Neuroscience

The Free Energy Principle: A Mathematical Theory of Everything Neural

Karl Friston's variational framework proposes that minimizing one mathematical quantity explains perception, action, and perhaps existence itself.

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NeuroTheorist
7 min read
What Predictive Processing Reveals About the Nature of Perception
Neuroscience

What Predictive Processing Reveals About the Nature of Perception

Your brain does not passively receive reality—it actively generates predictions that perception merely corrects, revealing mind as fundamentally generative.

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NeuroTheorist
7 min read
Neural Oscillations: Why Brain Rhythms Are Computational Primitives
Neuroscience

Neural Oscillations: Why Brain Rhythms Are Computational Primitives

Discover how rhythmic brain activity solves fundamental computational problems through precise temporal coordination across multiple frequencies.

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NeuroTheorist
6 min read
Integrated Information Theory: Measuring Consciousness Mathematically
Neuroscience

Integrated Information Theory: Measuring Consciousness Mathematically

A mathematical framework that quantifies consciousness as irreducible integrated information, generating testable predictions about which physical systems can and cannot experience.

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NeuroTheorist
7 min read
Why Neural Noise Isn't Random: The Computational Role of Variability
Neuroscience

Why Neural Noise Isn't Random: The Computational Role of Variability

Your brain's apparent randomness enables computational capabilities that perfectly reliable neural circuits could never achieve.

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NeuroTheorist
7 min read
The Binding Problem: How Your Brain Creates Unified Experience from Distributed Processing
Neuroscience

The Binding Problem: How Your Brain Creates Unified Experience from Distributed Processing

Discover how three competing theories attempt to explain your brain's most remarkable feat—weaving fragmented neural processing into seamless conscious experience.

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NeuroTheorist
7 min read
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