Excellent take-down of the so-called Free-Energy Principle. Not a principle of "thingness." Not a principle of life. But simply a modeling framework that may (or may not) be useful for modeling the expectations of anticipatory systems.

https://www.dialecticalsystems.eu/contributions/life-beyond-the-free-energy-principle-how-to-survive-without-invariance

Life beyond the free energy principle: how to survive without invariance - Dialectical Systems

Since emerging onto the stage as ‘a theory of cortical responses’ in 2005[1], Karl Friston’s free energy principle has undergone numerous costume changes. In its most modest dress, it appears as nothing more than a tautological truism[2]: in its most eye-catching ensemble it is “an existential dyad from which everything of interest about life and […]

Dialectical Systems

@yoginho
Dialectic. very much reminds me of missing the point, like the infamous "Emperor's New Markov Blankets" paper.

Anyway, I'm "Against Criticism" 🙂

@psybertron

Yes, the FEP fits into the general trialectic of life: https://osf.io/preprints/osf/pr42k

but not as a fundamental principle. Instead, it is an interesting way (in my opinion) to look at anticipation (part of the broader evolutionary dialectic).

Nature (and esp. life) is fundamentally *not* computational.

OSF

@yoginho
I'm learning to avoid the "computation" term (from you) ... but still happy to see "natural information processing" as fundamental 🙂

@psybertron

That's ok. I'm working on explaining to everyone that "information" is just a practical approach to model the evolution of nonholonomic constraints.

Just don't start saying things like "the universe is made of information" or suchlike. That's yukky, ontologically.

@yoginho
Pretty good metaphysically though 🙂

@psybertron

Now, surely, you're trolling me! 🧐

@yoginho

#VicenteRaja (refs 17, 36) does a succint tear down of the #MarkovBlanket & #FEP math modeling extursions, etc. In this #BeyondPhrenology #NeuroPod 11min cut with #MadhurMangalam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jCGRP7kJWo

The Markov Blanket Trick

YouTube
@teixi Thanks! Vicente's paper is high on my reading list.