Markov blankets and Bayesian mechanics (Karl Friston)

Mathematical Consciousness Science
Mathematical Consciousness Science
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Published 2020-06-19
This presentation offers a heuristic proof (and simulations of a primordial soup) suggesting that life—or biological self-organization—is an inevitable and emergent property of any (weakly mixing) random dynamical system that possesses a Markov blanket. This conclusion is based on the following arguments: if a system can be differentiated from its external milieu, heat bath or environment, then the system’s internal and external states must be conditionally independent. These independences induce a Markov blanket that separates internal and external states. This separation means that internal states will appear to minimize a free energy functional of blanket states – via a variational principle of stationary action. Crucially, this equips internal states with an information geometry, pertaining to probabilistic beliefs about something; namely external states. Interestingly, this free energy is the same quantity that is optimized in Bayesian inference and machine learning (where it is known as an evidence lower bound). In short, internal states (and their Markov blanket) will appear to model—and act on—their world to preserve their functional and structural integrity. This leads to a Bayesian mechanics, which can be neatly summarised as self-evidencing.
All Comments (13)
  • @urfan7850
    Markov Blankets and Conscious agent concepts stunned me
  • @MLDawn
    A year ago when I had just started to read on free energy, this video was so heavy that I felt physically sick from the pressure of trying to understand it. Now, watching it for the first time since then, I can understand and appreciate 80 percent of it but the remaining heavy 20 percent is still upsetting my stomach😅... maybe I should revisit in a year again
  • @YukiAyata
    Thank you so much for sharing the video! treasure!
  • @DALibby127
    Would love to see Donald Hoffman compare these ideas to his Conscious Agent theory, which involves Markov kernels
  • @dadsonworldwide3238
    Is this affected by the cmb ? Meaning if newtons orginal oreintation and direction is correct with einstein reductionism but cmb grand unified evolutionary theory is wrong would it matter?
  • @AbcDef-tl2kq
    Electromagnetic field is because of exchanging virtual photon with space or quantum field. Weak force is due to exchange of virtual photon at smaller scale n so is strong nuclear force.
  • @CandidDate
    You'd think plugging these formulas into a computer, it would start to think?
  • @Benjamin93swe1
    To bad it is exactly (or close to) the same presentation as he has given a lot of times. Would like to see him talk more about "projective consciousness model".
  • @gbnet54
    The Markov blanket is a plausible concept but, as far as I was able to search, it is a concept that has not caught on. Ultimately, all the picture remains highly speculative. Maybe I don't really appreciate its value.
  • @AbcDef-tl2kq
    Gravity is virttual photon exchange between space n particle.