Free-energy minimization in joint agent-environment systems: A niche construction perspective

Journal of Theoretical Biology
Jelle BruinebergKarl J Friston

Abstract

The free-energy principle is an attempt to explain the structure of the agent and its brain, starting from the fact that an agent exists (Friston and Stephan, 2007; Friston et al., 2010). More specifically, it can be regarded as a systematic attempt to understand the 'fit' between an embodied agent and its niche, where the quantity of free-energy is a measure for the 'misfit' or disattunement (Bruineberg and Rietveld, 2014) between agent and environment. This paper offers a proof-of-principle simulation of niche construction under the free-energy principle. Agent-centered treatments have so far failed to address situations where environments change alongside agents, often due to the action of agents themselves. The key point of this paper is that the minimum of free-energy is not at a point in which the agent is maximally adapted to the statistics of a static environment, but can better be conceptualized an attracting manifold within the joint agent-environment state-space as a whole, which the system tends toward through mutual interaction. We will provide a general introduction to active inference and the free-energy principle. Using Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), we then describe a canonical generative model and the ensui...Continue Reading

Citations

Jul 13, 2019·Cerebral Cortex·Thomas ParrKarl J Friston
Sep 29, 2019·Biological cybernetics·Thomas Parr, Karl J Friston
Apr 24, 2020·PLoS Computational Biology·Alexander TschantzChristopher L Buckley
May 31, 2019·The Behavioral and Brain Sciences·Samuel P L VeissièreLaurence J Kirmayer
Oct 15, 2019·Frontiers in Human Neuroscience·Georg Northoff
May 29, 2020·The Behavioral and Brain Sciences·Micah AllenFrancesca Fardo
May 29, 2020·The Behavioral and Brain Sciences·Julian Kiverstein, Erik Rietveld
Apr 10, 2020·Frontiers in Psychology·Jared VasilMaxwell J D Ramstead
Feb 26, 2021·Synthese·Maxwell J D RamsteadKarl J Friston
Mar 19, 2021·Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence·Anthony G ChenKarl J Friston
Jul 3, 2021·Entropy·Hermann Haken, Juval Portugali
Aug 7, 2021·Frontiers in Psychology·Mahault AlbarracinMaxwell James D Ramstead
Aug 8, 2021·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Wolf Singer
Aug 31, 2021·Frontiers in Psychology·Rémi Tison, Pierre Poirier
Dec 28, 2021·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Giovanni PezzuloKarl Friston

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