-
I recently took part in Michael Levin’s ongoing symposium on Platonic spaces in biology. The symposium contains excellent talks from Lauren Ross, Karl Friston, Chris Fields, Iain McGilchrist, and many others. My lecture focused on how we can use formalized algebraic models to narrow the space of candidate neural mechanisms for language. It contains a
-
New paper published this week: Fundamental Principles of Linguistic Structure Are Not Represented by ChatGPT Paper link here, PDF link here “A core component of a successful artificial general intelligence would be the rapid creation and manipulation of grounded compositional abstractions and the demonstration of expertise in the family of recursive hierarchical syntactic objects necessary
-
It is a common, and very reasonable question to ask what the predictions of the Minimalist Program would be concerning what would happen if the core language system (in the brain) was disabled (see here). Theoretical linguists have not, on the whole, done the best job at clarifying how we might go about answering these
-
The Neuroscience & Philosophy Salon (run by neuroscientist Luiz Pessoa) very kindly hosted me for a lecture and discussion about syntax and the brain, including a discussion with William Matchin and Sander van Bree. Available on YouTube here.
-
This week I had a one hour discussion with biologist Michael Levin about the neural basis of language, covering issues relating to LLMs, language development, and philosophy of science. Available on YouTube here.
-
New paper published in Topics in Cognitive Science, reviewing the literature on the neurobiology of language in the aging brain (PDF available here). “Language is perhaps the most complex and sophisticated of cognitive faculties in humans. The neurobiological basis of language in the healthy, aging brain remains a relatively neglected topic, in particular with respect
-
New paper published in Cognitive Neuroscience on the neural code for natural language syntax (PDF here). This paper explores what neural mechanisms can potentially satisfy the demands of the free non-associative commutative magma emerging from contemporary formulations of a Merge-based syntax. These are proposed to be a delimited set of neural signatures that are hypothesized
-
New paper published today in Cognitive Neuroscience: A commentary on Parr, Pezzulo & Friston (2025) discussing the architecture of human language and how it poses a unique challenge to modern approaches to cognitive science. PDF available here.
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Elliot Murphy 