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  1. (1 other version)Extended Predictive Minds: do Markov Blankets Matter?Marco Facchin - 2023 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 14 (3):909-938.
    The extended mind thesis claims that a subject’s mind sometimes encompasses the environmental props the subject interacts with while solving cognitive tasks. Recently, the debate over the extended mind has been focused on Markov Blankets: the statistical boundaries separating biological systems from the environment. Here, I argue such a focus is mistaken, because Markov Blankets neither adjudicate, nor help us adjudicate, whether the extended mind thesis is true. To do so, I briefly introduce Markov Blankets and the free energy principle (...)
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  • Dosis sola facit venenum: reconceptualising biological realism.Majid D. Beni - 2022 - Biology and Philosophy 37 (6):1-18.
    Richard Levins’s (Am Sci 54(4):421–431, 1966) paper sets a landmark for the significance of scientific model-making in biology. Colombo and Palacios (Biol Philos 36(5):1–26. 10.1007/s10539-021-09818-x, 2021) have recently built their critique of the explanatory power of the Free Energy Principle on Levins’s insight into the relationship between generality, realism, and precision. This paper addresses the issue of the plausibility of biological explanations that are grounded in the Free Energy Principle (FEP) and deals with the question of the realist fortitude of (...)
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  • Life, mind, agency: Why Markov blankets fail the test of evolution.Walter Veit & Heather Browning - 2022 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 45:e214.
    There has been much criticism of the idea that Friston's free-energy principle can unite the life and mind sciences. Here, we argue that perhaps the greatest problem for the totalizing ambitions of its proponents is a failure to recognize the importance of evolutionary dynamics and to provide a convincing adaptive story relating free-energy minimization to organismal fitness.
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  • The nature of beliefs and believing.Mahault Albarracin & Riddhi J. Pitliya - 2022 - Frontiers in Psychology 13.
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  • A tale of two architectures.Majid D. Beni - 2022 - Consciousness and Cognition 98 (C):103257.
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  • (1 other version)The Literalist Fallacy & the Free Energy Principle: Model building, Scientific Realism and Instrumentalism.Michael David Kirchhoff, Julian Kiverstein & Ian Robertson - manuscript
    Disagreement about how best to think of the relation between theories and the realities they represent has a longstanding and venerable history. We take up this debate in relation to the free energy principle (FEP) - a contemporary framework in computational neuroscience, theoretical biology and the philosophy of cognitive science. The FEP is very ambitious, extending from the brain sciences to the biology of self-organisation. In this context, some find apparent discrepancies between the map (the FEP) and the territory (target (...)
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  • Conscious Self-Evidencing.Jakob Hohwy - 2022 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 13 (4):809-828.
    Self-evidencing describes the purported predictive processing of all self-organising systems, whether conscious or not. Self-evidencing in itself is therefore not sufficient for consciousness. Different systems may however be capable of self-evidencing in different, specific and distinct ways. Some of these ways of self-evidencing can be matched up with, and explain, several properties of consciousness. This carves out a distinction in nature between those systems that are conscious, as described by these properties, and those that are not. This approach throws new (...)
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  • Inflating the social aspects of cognitive structural realism.Majid D. Beni - 2021 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 11 (3):1-18.
    Inspired by Ronald Giere’s cognitive approach to scientific models, Cognitive Structural Realism has presented a naturalist account of scientific representation. CSR characterises the structure of theories in terms of cognitive structures. These are informational structures embodied in the brains of scientists. CSR accounts for scientific representation in terms of the dynamical relationship between the organism and its environment. The proposal has been criticised on account of its negligence of social aspects of scientific practice. The present paper aims to chart out (...)
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  • (1 other version)Extended Predictive Minds: do Markov Blankets Matter?Marco Facchin - 2021 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology (3):1-30.
    The extended mind thesis claims that a subject’s mind sometimes encompasses the environmental props the subject interacts with while solving cognitive tasks. Recently, the debate over the extended mind has been focused on Markov Blankets: the statistical boundaries separating biological systems from the environment. Here, I argue such a focus is mistaken, because Markov Blankets neither adjudicate, nor help us adjudicate, whether the extended mind thesis is true. To do so, I briefly introduce Markov Blankets and the free energy principle (...)
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  • Predictive processing and anti-representationalism.Marco Facchin - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):11609-11642.
    Many philosophers claim that the neurocomputational framework of predictive processing entails a globally inferentialist and representationalist view of cognition. Here, I contend that this is not correct. I argue that, given the theoretical commitments these philosophers endorse, no structure within predictive processing systems can be rightfully identified as a representational vehicle. To do so, I first examine some of the theoretical commitments these philosophers share, and show that these commitments provide a set of necessary conditions the satisfaction of which allows (...)
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  • The math is not the territory: navigating the free energy principle.Mel Andrews - 2021 - Biology and Philosophy 36 (3):1-19.
    Much has been written about the free energy principle (FEP), and much misunderstood. The principle has traditionally been put forth as a theory of brain function or biological self-organisation. Critiques of the framework have focused on its lack of empirical support and a failure to generate concrete, falsifiable predictions. I take both positive and negative evaluations of the FEP thus far to have been largely in error, and appeal to a robust literature on scientific modelling to rectify the situation. A (...)
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  • Active Inference and Abduction.Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen & Majid D. Beni - 2021 - Biosemiotics 14 (2):499-517.
    The background target of the research going into the present article is to forge an intellectual alliance between, on the one hand, active inference and the free-energy principle (FEP), and on the other, Charles S. Peirce’s theory of semiotics and pragmatism. In the present paper, the focus is on the allegiance between the nomenclatures of active and abductive inferences as the proper place to begin reaching at that wider target. The paper outlines the key conceptual elements involved in a naturalistic (...)
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  • Is free-energy minimisation the mark of the cognitive?Matt Sims & Julian Kiverstein - 2021 - Biology and Philosophy 36 (2):1-27.
    A mark of the cognitive should allow us to specify theoretical principles for demarcating cognitive from non-cognitive causes of behaviour in organisms. Specific criteria are required to settle the question of when in the evolution of life cognition first emerged. An answer to this question should however avoid two pitfalls. It should avoid overintellectualising the minds of other organisms, ascribing to them cognitive capacities for which they have no need given the lives they lead within the niches they inhabit. But (...)
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  • Principles Behind Semantic Relation between Common Abbreviations and their Expansions on Instagram.Andi Kaharuddin - 2020 - International Journal of Criminology and Sociology 9:2270-2276.
    The phenomenon of abbreviation used on Instagram is an interesting thing since the users modify the abbreviation form of expansion words making deviation from the original meaning. The principle of meaning relation between abbreviations and their expansions is used to make a change to the purposes of Instagram users. This research was aimed to describe the principle of abbreviation used in Instagram. An exploitation method was used by the technique of making screenshots and recording the abbreviation data. The results of (...)
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  • Sparks of New Metaphysics and the Limits of Explanatory Abstractions.Thomas Hauer - 2024 - Metaphysica 25 (1):15-39.
    Physical reality as an explanatory model is an abstraction of the mind. Every perceptual system is a user interface, like the dashboard of an aeroplane or the desktop of a computer. We do not see or otherwise perceive reality but only interface with reality. The user interface concept is a starting point for a critical dialogue with those epistemic theories that present themselves as veridical and take explanatory abstractions as ontological primitives. At the heart of any scientific model are assumptions (...)
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  • Beauty and Uncertainty as Transformative Factors: A Free Energy Principle Account of Aesthetic Diagnosis and Intervention in Gestalt Psychotherapy.Pietro Sarasso, Gianni Francesetti, Jan Roubal, Michela Gecele, Irene Ronga, Marco Neppi-Modona & Katiuscia Sacco - 2022 - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 16:906188.
    Drawing from field theory, Gestalt therapy conceives psychological suffering and psychotherapy as two intentional field phenomena, where unprocessed and chaotic experiences seek the opportunity to emerge and be assimilated through the contact between the patient and the therapist (i.e., the intentionality of contacting). This therapeutic approach is based on the therapist’s aesthetic experience of his/her embodied presence in the flow of the healing process because (1) the perception of beauty can provide the therapist with feedback on the assimilation of unprocessed (...)
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  • From Generative Models to Generative Passages: A Computational Approach to (Neuro) Phenomenology.Maxwell J. D. Ramstead, Anil K. Seth, Casper Hesp, Lars Sandved-Smith, Jonas Mago, Michael Lifshitz, Giuseppe Pagnoni, Ryan Smith, Guillaume Dumas, Antoine Lutz, Karl Friston & Axel Constant - 2022 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 13 (4):829-857.
    This paper presents a version of neurophenomenology based on generative modelling techniques developed in computational neuroscience and biology. Our approach can be described as _computational phenomenology_ because it applies methods originally developed in computational modelling to provide a formal model of the descriptions of lived experience in the phenomenological tradition of philosophy (e.g., the work of Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, etc.). The first section presents a brief review of the overall project to naturalize phenomenology. The second section presents and evaluates (...)
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  • Active inference models do not contradict folk psychology.Ryan Smith, Maxwell J. D. Ramstead & Alex Kiefer - 2022 - Synthese 200 (2):1-37.
    Active inference offers a unified theory of perception, learning, and decision-making at computational and neural levels of description. In this article, we address the worry that active inference may be in tension with the belief–desire–intention model within folk psychology because it does not include terms for desires at the mathematical level of description. To resolve this concern, we first provide a brief review of the historical progression from predictive coding to active inference, enabling us to distinguish between active inference formulations (...)
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  • Perceptual justification in the Bayesian brain: a foundherentist account.Paweł Gładziejewski - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):11397-11421.
    In this paper, I use the predictive processing theory of perception to tackle the question of how perceptual states can be rationally involved in cognition by justifying other mental states. I put forward two claims regarding the epistemological implications of PP. First, perceptual states can confer justification on other mental states because the perceptual states are themselves rationally acquired. Second, despite being inferentially justified rather than epistemically basic, perceptual states can still be epistemically responsive to the mind-independent world. My main (...)
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  • A free energy reconstruction of arguments for panpsychism.Majid D. Beni - 2021 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 22 (2):399-416.
    The paper draws on scientific resources formed around the notion of Free Energy Principle to reconstruct two well-known defences of panpsychism. I reconstruct the argument from continuity by expanding the mind-life continuity thesis under the rubric of the Free Energy Principle (FEP), by showing that FEP does not provide an objective criterion for demarcating the living from the inanimate. Then I will reconstruct the argument from intrinsic nature. The FEP-based account of consciousness is centred on the notion of ‘temporal depth’ (...)
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  • A critical analysis of Markovian monism.Majid D. Beni - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):6407-6427.
    Free Energy Principle underlies a unifying framework that integrates theories of origins of life, cognition, and action. Recently, FEP has been developed into a Markovian monist perspective. The paper expresses scepticism about the validity of arguments for Markovian monism. The critique is based on the assumption that Markovian models are scientific models, and while we may defend ontological theories about the nature of scientific models, we could not read off metaphysical theses about the nature of target systems from our theories (...)
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  • An Algorithmic Metaphysics of Self-Patterns.Majid D. Beni - 2020 - Frontiers in Psychology 11.
    The paper draws on an algorithmic criterion to demonstrate that the self is a composite, scattered, and patterned object. It also addresses the question of extendedness of the self-pattern. Based on the criteria drawn from algorithmic complexity, I argue that although the self-pattern possesses a genuinely extended aspect the self-pattern and its environment do not constitute a genuine composite object.
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  • (1 other version)The Literalist Fallacy and the Free Energy Principle: Model-Building, Scientific Realism, and Instrumentalism.Michael David Kirchhoff, Julian Kiverstein & Ian Robertson - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
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  • Examining the Continuity between Life and Mind: Is There a Continuity between Autopoietic Intentionality and Representationality?Wanja Wiese & Karl J. Friston - 2021 - Philosophies 6 (1):18.
    A weak version of the life-mind continuity thesis entails that every living system also has a basic mind (with a non-representational form of intentionality). The strong version entails that the same concepts that are sufficient to explain basic minds (with non-representational states) are also central to understanding non-basic minds (with representational states). We argue that recent work on the free energy principle supports the following claims with respect to the life-mind continuity thesis: (i) there is a strong continuity between life (...)
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  • Osteopathic Care as (En)active Inference: A Theoretical Framework for Developing an Integrative Hypothesis in Osteopathy.Jorge E. Esteves, Francesco Cerritelli, Joohan Kim & Karl J. Friston - 2022 - Frontiers in Psychology 13.
    Osteopathy is a person-centred healthcare discipline that emphasizes the body’s structure-function interrelationship—and its self-regulatory mechanisms—to inform a whole-person approach to health and wellbeing. This paper aims to provide a theoretical framework for developing an integrative hypothesis in osteopathy, which is based on the enactivist and active inference accounts. We propose that osteopathic care can be reconceptualised under active inference as a unifying framework. Active inference suggests that action-perception cycles operate to minimize uncertainty and optimize an individual’s internal model of the (...)
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  • What Might Interoceptive Inference Reveal about Consciousness?Niia Nikolova, Peter Thestrup Waade, Karl J. Friston & Micah Allen - 2022 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 13 (4):879-906.
    The mainstream science of consciousness offers a few predominate views of how the brain gives rise to awareness. Chief among these are the Higher-Order Thought Theory, Global Neuronal Workspace Theory, Integrated Information Theory, and hybrids thereof. In parallel, rapid development in predictive processing approaches have begun to outline concrete mechanisms by which interoceptive inference shapes selfhood, affect, and exteroceptive perception. Here, we consider these new approaches in terms of what they might offer our empirical, phenomenological, and philosophical understanding of consciousness (...)
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  • Biosemiotic Achievement Award for the Year 2021.Alin Olteanu & Vinicius Romanini - 2022 - Biosemiotics 15 (3):395-399.
    The Annual Biosemiotic Achievement Award was established at the annual meeting of the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies (ISBS) in 2014, in conjunction with Springer and Biosemiotics. It seeks to recognize papers published in the journal that present novel and potentially important contributions to biosemiotic research, its scientific impact and its future prospects. Here the winner of the Biosemiotic Achievement Award for 2020 is announced: The award goes to Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen and Majid D. Beni for their article "Active Inference and (...)
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  • Measure for Measure: Operationalising Cognitive Realism.Majid D. Beni - 2024 - Minds and Machines 34 (3):1-16.
    This paper develops a measure of realism from within the framework of cognitive structural realism (CSR). It argues that in the context of CSR, realism can be operationalised in terms of balance between accuracy and generality. More specifically, the paper draws on the free energy principle to characterise the measure of realism in terms of the balance between accuracy and generality.
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  • The Emperor's New Markov Blankets.Jelle Bruineberg, Krzysztof Dołęga, Joe Dewhurst & Manuel Baltieri - 2022 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 45:e183.
    The free energy principle, an influential framework in computational neuroscience and theoretical neurobiology, starts from the assumption that living systems ensure adaptive exchanges with their environment by minimizing the objective function of variational free energy. Following this premise, it claims to deliver a promising integration of the life sciences. In recent work, Markov blankets, one of the central constructs of the free energy principle, have been applied to resolve debates central to philosophy (such as demarcating the boundaries of the mind). (...)
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  • A universal ethology challenge to the free energy principle: species of inference and good regulators.Thomas van Es & Michael D. Kirchhoff - 2021 - Biology and Philosophy 36 (2):1-24.
    The free energy principle (FEP) portends to provide a unifying principle for the biological and cognitive sciences. It states that for a system to maintain non-equilibrium steady-state with its environment it must minimise its (information-theoretic) free energy. Under the FEP, to minimise free energy is equivalent to engaging in approximate Bayesian inference. According to the FEP, therefore, inference is at the explanatory base of biology and cognition. In this paper, we discuss a specific challenge to this inferential formulation of adaptive (...)
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