I am a philosopher of cognition. This means that I apply the tools of conceptual analysis and theoretical model building to answer fundamental questions about human cognition - about the way that human beings think. ​Currently, I am finishing up as a postdoctoral researcher on Andy Clark’s prestigious and highly interdisciplinary 4-year European Research Council (ERC) project Expecting Ourselves: Embodied Prediction and the Construction of Conscious Experience,​ and begin a new post as an assistant professor at the University of Hokkaido's Center for Human Nature, Artificial Intelligence and Neuroscience. 

​My research investigates the implications of a leading new perspective on cognition, which conceptualizes the mind as an engine of knowledge-driven predictions (i.e., the “predictive mind”). I work to integrate this body of work with the so called “4E cognition” view, which emphasizes the role of embodied processes in constituting what we call a mind. By foregrounding the role of action, emotion, social interaction and technology in cognitive processing, I have developed new naturalistic accounts of philosophically central concepts, such as curiosity and playfulness, desire, addiction, depression and mood disorders, depersonalization and self-less experiences in meditation, and human happiness and flourishing.

Most recently, my research has begun to explore how these same developments in cognitive neuroscience may help us gain a clearer understanding of the impact that our increasingly technologically-mediated world has on our well-being. By leveraging theoretical insights from predictive processing, we are now in the position to develop new perspectives on contemporary discussions in domains such as human-computer interaction and socio-technical systems, with a specific emphasis on human well-being. 

A few upcoming things...

New Publication: Losing Ourselves: Active Inference, Depersonalization, and Meditation

Brand new publication with George Deane and Sam Wilkinson on the nature of selfless experiences, both the dysphoric experiences native to dissociative disorders and the euphoric ones sought after by meditators. 

You can find it here.
NEW Aeon Article: The Value of Uncertainty

"Understanding our own relationship with uncertainty has never been more important, for we live in unusually challenging times. Climate change, COVID-19 and the new order of surveillance capitalism make it feel as if we are entering a new age of global volatility. Where once for many in the West there were just pockets of instability (deep unpredictability) in a sea of reliability – albeit sometimes in disagreeable structures and expectations – it lately seems as if there are just pockets of stability in a swirling sea of hard-to-master change. By better understanding both the varieties and the value of uncertainty, and recognising the immense added value of turning our own uncertainties and expectations into concrete objects apt for test and challenge, we become better able to leverage the power of our own predictive brains".

You can find the article here: 

This article was just featured as the cover story in the excellent Italian research magazine Internazionale. 
Conference: Expecting Wellbeing: Predictive Organisms in the Socio-Technological Niche

Andy Clark (University of Sussex), Chris Burr (Allan Turning Institute) and myself are organizing a summer's end (totally online) conference to explore the various ways that predictive processing framework is informing our understanding of human flushing, and how it is impacted by our evolving socio-technological environment. Call for papers will be coming out shortly!
Welcome to the Nested Mind Network
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The Nested Minds Network (NMN) is an international, multilab research community currently connecting research groups at more than 19 universities, in 8 countries). NMN advocates an approach to studying the mind that draws on various methodologies and framework, from neuroscience, machine learning, biology, and psychology to philosophy, anthropology, and the arts. A central imperative of the network is to inspire and encourage interdisciplinary research and to be the guarantor of beneficial cross-pollinations between people and labs around the world. This marks a return to the original spirit of cognitive science, which at its inception was conceived as a collective, interdisciplinary effort to understand an object that escapes the perspective of any one discipline: the living mind. This ethos is a reflection of our collective belief that tackling the big questions about minds requires just such a collaborative effort.