Tomy Ames (@tomyames) header
Tomy Ames (@tomyames) profile picture

Philosophizing @WUSTL #Philosophy-#Neuroscience-#Psychology & @LindenwoodU on perception, memory, & AI. AI Consultant; Healthcare Admin; former VP, Data Science

St. Louis, MO
Joined November 2009
Photo by Tomy Ames (@tomyames)Photo by Tomy Ames (@tomyames)Photo by Tomy Ames (@tomyames)Photo by Tomy Ames (@tomyames)Photo by Tomy Ames (@tomyames)Photo by Tomy Ames (@tomyames)Photo by Tomy Ames (@tomyames)Photo by Tomy Ames (@tomyames)Photo by Tomy Ames (@tomyames)Photo by Tomy Ames (@tomyames)
Tomy Ames retweeted
Interviewing students about their use of AI
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Philosophers completing the research methodology section in grant applications
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Tomy Ames retweeted
Student responded to my joke with "is that another reference from before we were born?"
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Tomy Ames retweeted
I'll never understand why people hold false beliefs. If it's false, just don't believe it. Problem solved!
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Tomy Ames retweeted
buddy, I was writing 10 page papers without having read the book.
I was told by a 22yr old today that there was no way people were writing 10 page papers without AI.
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Sci-Hub is an evil website that pirated 85M+ research papers and made them freely available And now they've added AI to their database to make Sci-Bot. It answers your questions using latest, full-text articles. But DO NOT use it. We should all try to make billion-dollar academic publishers richer. I'm putting the link below so you know how to avoid it.
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We've uploaded a fruit fly. We took the @FlyWireNews connectome of the fruit fly brain, applied a simple neuron model (@Philip_Shiu Nature 2024) and used it to control a MuJoCo physics-simulated body, closing the loop from neural activation to action. A few things I want to say about what this means and where we're going at @eonsys. 🧵
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Replying to @elonmusk
It’s easier to be philosophical when rent is covered.
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Tomy Ames retweeted
The Extinction Illusion. Your brain swears the right side has more dots — it’s actually exactly the same as the left. journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs…
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𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻 Annual reminder that the book is open access. How do we think of the brain as a deeply interconnected system with highly distributed, non hierarchical processing. Want to learn about the brain from a fresh perspective? mitpress.mit.edu/97802625446…
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This is the textbook I wrote to support the most advanced high school math/CS sequence in the USA. It's freely available. Link in first reply. In Math Academy's (former) Eurisko program, which ran from 2020-23, we scaffolded high school students up to doing masters/PhD-level coursework: reproducing academic research papers in artificial intelligence, building everything from scratch in Python. We currently have all of Eurisko's math prerequisites available on the Math Academy system (which is where Matteo and other Eurisko students learned it). Eurisko ended in 2023 when I relocated because nobody else in the district had the requisite knowledge to teach it. But we will eventually have the entire Eurisko curriculum, and more, on the Math Academy system.
Can't think of a better way to close out 2025 than seeing the head of NASA ask my former student @matteopaz06 to apply, with a fighter jet ride as a signing bonus. Matteo was one of my students in the Eurisko program, which, during its operation from 2020-23, was the most advanced high school math/CS sequence in the USA. It culminated in high school students doing masters/PhD-level coursework (reproducing academic research papers in artificial intelligence, building everything from scratch in Python) Matteo joined Eurisko as a 10th grader, during the last year it was offered, and worked hard to complete almost all 2-3 years’ worth of assignments in a single year. (Eurisko ended when I relocated; nobody else in the district had the requisite knowledge to teach it.) This is exactly the position that we were trying to put students in with the Eurisko program – get them to a point of skill that they can capitalize on some math/coding-related opportunity and turn it into a chain reaction of fortunate events. And it’s been so great to witness some of these chain reactions get underway.
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Eurasian Memory Meeting 2026 05-07/03 in Tokyo! eurasianmemory.com/eurasian-…
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Ten years (!) after submitting the grant, NextBrain is published in @Nature . NextBrain is a brain atlas built from 3D histology that enables segmentation of 3D brain scans (MRI, Hip-CT, even photos!) into hundreds of regions. Article, data, code, videos, & more in this 🧵 (1/3)
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Where are memories stored in the brain? The textbook answer is that memories live in the synaptic connections between neurons. But not everyone agrees. From the archive, our interview with @gershbrain! Listen: disi.org/of-molecules...
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Here's a whole playlist of 11 videos identifying common FAKE QUOTES misattributed to philosophers. So far we've done: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Voltaire, and Friedrich Nietzsche youtube.com/playlist?list=PL…
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New paper - 'Illusions of memory' - forthcoming in the Asian Journal of Philosophy, as part of the Eurasian Memory Meeting topical collection. Penultimate draft up here: philpapers.org/rec/OPEIOM
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Tomy Ames retweeted
Replying to @FadiAnjoul
Linking a great post on this by @paulbloomatyale : smallpotatoes.paulbloom.net/… (which is itself a reply to a more pessimistic take on psychology by @a_m_mastroianni , also worth reading)
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Online now: A neural basis for distinguishing imagination from reality dlvr.it/TLBbT0
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> be plant > leaves attacked by insect > warn neighbors by releasing molecules into air > neighbors get the signal > neighbors trigger molecular cascade and "talk to" soil bacteria > soil microbes "increase plant growth and enhance plant defences." Plants are highly underrated.
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What happens to visual memory when part of a visually selective brain region is removed? Patient VH, who lost part of his parahippocampal place area and struggled to consolidate scene memories overnight, offers some insights. Read more in Learning & Memory:shorturl.at/JYMu7
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