Software engineer with a soft spot for robotics. Essays, notes, open questions.https://richiemoluno.com/https://richiemoluno.com/blog/conditioned-interests-of-young-adults/https://richiemoluno.com/blog/conditioned-interests-of-young-adults/What's funneling young adults into the same narrow set of interests - algorithms, peer effects, education tracks? And what genuinely different paths are we being steered away from?Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTopen-questioncultureessayhttps://richiemoluno.com/blog/how-do-neurons-learn/https://richiemoluno.com/blog/how-do-neurons-learn/How does synaptic plasticity actually work at the biochemistry level - LTP, LTD, Hebbian rules - and do any of those mechanisms transfer to artificial networks?Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTopen-questionneurosciencemlhttps://richiemoluno.com/blog/inherited-mutations-from-environment/https://richiemoluno.com/blog/inherited-mutations-from-environment/Can environmentally-triggered mutations actually reach offspring? Where's the line between germline and somatic, between an epigenetic mark and an inherited disease?Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTopen-questionbiologyepigeneticshttps://richiemoluno.com/blog/language-of-thought-before-words/https://richiemoluno.com/blog/language-of-thought-before-words/Before words landed in our minds, what was the language of thought? How did we communicate with ourselves before language gave us an inner voice - and what got lost or gained when speech moved in?Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTopen-questioncognitionlanguagehttps://richiemoluno.com/blog/logic-predicated-on-values/https://richiemoluno.com/blog/logic-predicated-on-values/How and why is logic predicated on values and personality? Two people can share facts and inference rules and still land in different places - what does that say about the parts of 'logic' we mistake for universal?Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTopen-questionphilosophypsychologyhttps://richiemoluno.com/blog/pain-avoidance-vs-pleasure-seeking/https://richiemoluno.com/blog/pain-avoidance-vs-pleasure-seeking/Why does pain-avoidance pull on us harder than pleasure-seeking? Evolutionary asymmetry, loss aversion, the design of incentives, and culture - what's primary and what's downstream?Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTopen-questionpsychologymotivationhttps://richiemoluno.com/blog/piaget-game-of-life-reciprocity/https://richiemoluno.com/blog/piaget-game-of-life-reciprocity/Reciprocity is the substrate that holds iterated games together. How do Piaget's children at play translate to adult moral reasoning - and what does 'winning' mean once the game isn't zero-sum?Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTopen-questionphilosophypsychologyhttps://richiemoluno.com/blog/predicting-brain-response-to-language/https://richiemoluno.com/blog/predicting-brain-response-to-language/How can a model predict how the brain reacts to language? What does that say about language being a mostly-predictable signal - and where's the line between reading thoughts and reading correlations?Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTopen-questionneurosciencemlhttps://richiemoluno.com/blog/psychology-and-subjectivity/https://richiemoluno.com/blog/psychology-and-subjectivity/What makes psychology subjective in a way the hard sciences aren't - and what does that subjectivity actually cost (or buy) in how the field gets done?Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTopen-questionpsychologyphilosophyhttps://richiemoluno.com/blog/verifying-reasoning-in-llms/https://richiemoluno.com/blog/verifying-reasoning-in-llms/How do you actually verify reasoning in LLMs? Do neuro-symbolic approaches (LTNs, DeepProbLog) give us real proof structure, or just a fancier place to hide hallucinations?Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTopen-questionmlaihttps://richiemoluno.com/blog/within-race-face-recognition/https://richiemoluno.com/blog/within-race-face-recognition/How does the brain recognise within-race face similarity even when the distinguishing features aren't obvious? What is holistic face-processing keying on that the rest of us can't put into words?Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTopen-questionneuroscienceperception