A Drive to Survive: the free energy principle and the meaning of life
PsyArXiv Preprints September 6, 2023 preprint DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/15519.001.0001 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Keywords | Active inference Agency Biological autonomy Free energy principle Organicism Predictive processing Meta-science Life sciences |
| Key points | Argues that the Free Energy Principle's stability-based account of cognition cannot capture two features distinguishing biological intentional action from machine movement: the precarious dependence of bodily structure on the metabolic processes it supports, and the potential for developmental changes in that structure. Proposes that rejecting a machine-style separation between structure and processes is required to describe living systems as autonomous agents acting toward their own survival. |
Abstract
[Final version available as Open Access PDF from MIT Press: https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5897/A-Drive-to-SurviveThe-Free-Energy-Principle-and] The Free Energy Principle proposes to reduce the goal-directed behaviour of a living agent to the preservation of homeostasis and then to analyse cognition as the process of pursuing this goal. I argue that this stability-based account fails to capture the two features that distinguish the intentional actions of biological agents from the mere movements of inanimate machines: namely 1) the precarious dependence of their bodily structure upon the very metabolic processes that it supports and 2) their potential for developmental changes in this structure. It is only by rejecting the presumption of a machine-style separation between structure and processes that we can capture this uniquely precarious status of living systems, in virtue of which they may be described as autonomous agents, acting towards the goal of their own continued survival.
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Citations in the library
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