Tag: #ActiveInference

• Linking fast and slow

  “Linking fast and slow: The case for generative models” A pervasive challenge in neuroscience is testing whether neuronal connectivity changes over time due to specific causes, such as stimuli, events, or clinical interventions. Recent hardware innovations and falling data storage costs enable longer, more naturalistic neuronal recordings. The implicit opportunity for understanding the self-organised brain…

  walterstiers

  2026-03-12

  Active Inference, Biology of Information, Information Technology, Neurobiology/psychology, Science

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens, artificial-intelligence

• Robust Decision-Making Via Free Energy Minimization

  “Robust Decision-Making Via Free Energy Minimization” html, pdf, video, Nature Communications Despite their groundbreaking performance, state-of-the-art autonomous agents can misbehave when training and environmental conditions become inconsistent, with minor mismatches leading to undesirable behaviors or even catastrophic failures. Robustness towards these training/environment ambiguities is a core requirement for intelligent agents and its fulfillment is a…

  walterstiers

  2026-03-11

  #Sensemaking, Active Inference, AI, Biology of Information, Decision Intelligence, Information Technology

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, artificial-intelligence

• Collective predictive coding

  “Collective predictive coding as model of science: formalizing scientific activities towards generative science” This article proposes a new conceptual framework called collective predictive coding as a model of science (CPC‑MS) to formalize and understand scientific activities. Building on the idea of CPC originally developed to explain symbol emergence, CPC‑MS models science as a decentralized Bayesian…

  walterstiers

  2025-12-08

  #sense-making, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Life Ideas, Practical Wisdom, Science, Social-Technical

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #HumanAI, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, artificial-intelligence, consciousness, philosophy, Science

• The ‘made-up mind’.

  “The ‘made-up mind’. Deriving new hypotheses on delusions from general psychological models of belief maintenance” Highlights Contemporary definitions of delusions highlight their resistance to conflicting evidence as the core feature, but there has been little progress in understanding why even explicit confrontation with contradicting evidence seldom leads to belief revision. This review aims to generate…

  walterstiers

  2025-12-08

  #sense-making, #Wicked, Active Inference, Biology of Information, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Practical Wisdom

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens, #Uncertainty, AI, artificial-intelligence, consciousness, philosophy, Science

• Pathfinding: a neurodynamical account of intuition

  Pathfinding: a neurodynamical account of intuition We examine the neurobiology of intuition, a term often inconsistently defined in scientific literature. While researchers generally agree that intuition represents “an experienced-based process resulting in a spontaneous tendency toward a hunch or hypothesis,” we establish a firmer neurobiological foundation by framing intuition evolutionarily as a pathfinding mechanism emerging…

  walterstiers

  2025-08-17

  #sense-making, Active Inference, Biology of Information, Neurobiology/psychology, Science

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens, AI, artificial-intelligence, consciousness, mental-health, philosophy

• Resilience phenotypes derived from an active inference account of allostasis

  “Resilience phenotypes derived from an active inference account of allostasis“:Within a theoretical framework of enactive allostasis, we explore active inference strategies for minimizing surprise to achieve resilience in dynamic environments. While individual differences and extrinsic protective factors traditionally account for variability in resilience trajectories following stressor exposure, the enactive model emphasizes the importance of the…

  walterstiers

  2025-05-09

  Active Inference, Biology of Information, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens, AI, artificial-intelligence, consciousness, Science

• A Drive to Survive

  “A Drive to Survive: The Free Energy Principle and the Meaning of Life“ How the purposive behavior of living systems outstrips the constraints of the free energy principle. Since 2005, Karl Friston’s proposal that the principle of free energy minimization underpins the purposive behavior of living agents has evolved through thousands of publications. This principle’s central…

  walterstiers

  2025-02-22

  #Sensemaking, Active Inference, Biology of Information, Information Technology, Life Ideas

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens

• Is Ockham’s razor losing its edge?

  Is Ockham’s razor losing its edge? New perspectives on the principle of model parsimony The preference for simple explanations, known as the parsimony principle, has long guided the development of scientific theories, hypotheses, and models. Yet recent years have seen a number of successes in employing highly complex models for scientific inquiry (e.g., for 3D…

  walterstiers

  2025-01-28

  #Sensemaking, #Wicked, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Information Technology, Science

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens, #Uncertainty, AI, data-science, machine-learning, philosophy, Science

• Contextualizing predictive minds

  “Contextualizing predictive minds” discusses how the structure of human memory seems to be optimized for efficient prediction, planning, and behavior. We propose that these capacities rely on a tripartite structure of memory that includes concepts, events, and contexts—three layers that constitute the mental world model. We suggest that the mechanism that critically increases adaptivity and…

  walterstiers

  2024-12-17

  #sense-making, Active Inference, AI, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Neurobiology/psychology, Policy, Social-Technical

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, AI, artificial-intelligence, machine-learning, psychology

• Bayesian Models of Cognition 

  “Bayesian Models of Cognition Reverse Engineering the Mind” is a new MIT-press Open Access book available for online reading. The definitive introduction to Bayesian cognitive science, written by pioneers of the field. How does human intelligence work, in engineering terms? How do our minds get so much from so little? Bayesian models of cognition provide…

  walterstiers

  2024-11-19

  #sense-making, Active Inference, AI, Biology of Information, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Neurobiology/psychology, Science

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #HumanAI, #TheInformationLens, AI, artificial-intelligence, data-science, machine-learning, statistics

• Narrative as active inference

  “Narrative as active inference: an integrative account of cognitive and social functions in adaptation“:While the ubiquity and importance of narratives for human adaptation is widely recognized, there is no integrative framework for understanding the roles of narrative in human adaptation. Research has identified several cognitive and social functions of narratives that are conducive to well-being…

  walterstiers

  2024-10-13

  Active Inference, Decision Intelligence, Information Technology, Social-Technical

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens, education, marketing, philosophy, storytelling, writing

• Nature heals

  “Nature heals: An informational entropy account of self-organization and change in field psychotherapy“Highlights This paper reviews biophysical models of psychotherapeutic change based on synergetics and the free energy principle. These models suggest that introducing sensory surprise into the patient-therapist system can lead to self-organization and the formation of new attractor states, disrupting entrenched patterns of…

  walterstiers

  2024-10-13

  Active Inference, Biology of Information, Complexity, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, consciousness, mental-health, philosophy, psychology, spirituality

• Insight –> selection of ideas

  “Insight and the selection of ideas” describes the mechanisms underlying Eureka heuristic, explained within an active inference framework.  Perhaps it is no accident that insight moments accompany some of humanity’s most important discoveries in science, medicine, and art. Here we propose that feelings of insight play a central role in (heuristically) selecting an idea from…

  walterstiers

  2024-07-30

  #Sensemaking, Active Inference, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Science

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, #Uncertainty, #Wicked, bayesian-inference, decision-making, heuristics, philosophy, psychology

• music and aging | Bayesian inference

  “Understanding music and aging through the lens of Bayesian inference“ Bayesian inference has recently gained momentum in explaining music perception and aging. A fundamental mechanism underlying Bayesian inference is the notion of prediction. This framework could explain how predictions pertaining to musical (melodic, rhythmic, harmonic) structures engender action, emotion, and learning, expanding related concepts of music…

  walterstiers

  2024-07-29

  Active Inference, Biology of Information, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Science

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens

• Andy Clark “How the brain shapes reality”

  Philosopher and cognitive scientist Andy Clark challenges our conventional understanding of the mind’s interaction with the world. A great and entertaining lecture. I like the reflection with the reference to the weather forecast and how the forecast impacts “reality” perception. At the very least, understanding all those prediction-driven, precision-inflected, looping influences should bring us a…

  walterstiers

  2024-04-29

  #sense-making, Active Inference, AI, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Science

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #HumanAI, #TheInformationLens

• Collective behavior from surprise minimization

  This paper introduces a model of collective behavior, proposing that individual members within a group, such as a school of fish or a flock of birds, act to minimize surprise. This active inference approach naturally generates well-known collective phenomena such as cohesion and directed movement without explicit behavioral rules. This model reveals intricate relationships between…

  walterstiers

  2024-04-23

  #Wicked, Active Inference, Biology of Information, Complexity, Social-Technical

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #TheInformationLens, #Wicked

• Bayesianism and Wishful Thinking are Compatible

  On the face of it, wishful thinking seems incompatible with the Bayesian brain hypothesis. This is why defenses of Bayesianism have taken an eliminative stance toward wishful thinking, showing that many apparent instances of wishful thinking are not wishful after all. This strategy has succeeded in defeating many challenges to the Bayesian brain hypothesis, with…

  walterstiers

  2024-02-26

  #Sensemaking, AI, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Social-Technical

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens, #Wicked, bayes-theorem, bayesian-inference, machine-learning, philosophy, statistics

• Representation of priors and decisions

  The PLOS article by Marshall, Ruesseler, Hunt, O’Reilly “representation of priors and decisions in the human parietal cortex” discusses how both humans and animals actively sample the environment using their sensory organs, far from being passive recipients of sensory information. In rodents, active sampling processes include whisking and sniffing; in primates, the most important and…

  walterstiers

  2024-02-02

  #Sensemaking, Active Inference, Biology of Information, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Science

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #Neuroscience, #TheInformationLens, #Wicked, articles, memory, philosophy, Science

• Generating meaning – AI²: predicting wor(l)ds

  I would like to quote some of the great insights and statements from the opinion by G. Pezzulo, T. Parr, P. Cisek, A Clark, and K. Friston published in TICS: “Generating meaning: active inference and the scope and limits of passive AI“. Does ChatGPT ‘understand‘ what it talks about in the way we do, or…

  walterstiers

  2023-11-27

  #sense-making, Active Inference, AI, Biology of Information, Complexity, Information Technology, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Science

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #HumanAI, #TheInformationLens

• Interoception and Active Inference for mental health

  Interoception refers to the process by which the nervous system senses and integrates signals originating from within the body, providing a momentary mapping of the body’s internal landscape and its relationship to the outside world. Active inference is based on the premise that afferent sensory input to the brain is constantly shaped and modified by…

  walterstiers

  2023-11-17

  #Sensemaking, #Wicked, Active Inference, Biology of Information, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #HumanAI, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, #Wicked

• Conceptual Bootstrapping (human cognition)

  To tackle a hard problem, it is often wise to reuse and recombine existing knowledge. Such an ability to bootstrap enables us to grow rich mental concepts despite limited cognitive resources. This article presents a computational model of conceptual bootstrapping. This model uses a dynamic conceptual repertoire that can cache and later reuse elements of…

  walterstiers

  2023-10-31

  #Sensemaking, #Wicked, Active Inference, Biology of Information, Information Technology, Neurobiology/psychology

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #HumanAI, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• How adults understand what young children say

  When babies first begin to talk, their vocabulary is very limited. Often one of the first sounds they generate is “da,” which may refer to dad, a dog, a dot, or nothing at all. How does an adult listener make sense of this limited verbal repertoire? A new study “How adults understand what young children…

  walterstiers

  2023-10-30

  #Sensemaking, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• Puzzled …? – Consider the Bayesian brain hypothesis!

  Dysfunctional breathing disorder(s) (DBD) is an umbrella term for a set of poorly distinguishable clinical conditions including the most emblematic and anciently known hyperventilation syndrome. DBD affects in a variable proportion (between 5 and 35%) both adults and children, with a highly negative impact on health-related quality of life. DBD is consensually considered as a…

  walterstiers

  2023-10-30

  #Sensemaking, Active Inference, Biology of Information, Decision Intelligence, Neurobiology/psychology, Science

  #ActiveInference, #HumanAI, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• Bayesian models of perception and action (free e-book)

  Bayesian models of perception and action An introduction By Wei Ji Ma, Konrad Kording, and Daniel Goldreich An accessible introduction to constructing and interpreting Bayesian models of perceptual decision-making and action. Many forms of perception and action can be mathematically modeled as probabilistic — or Bayesian — inference, a method used to draw conclusions from…

  walterstiers

  2023-10-09

  Active Inference, Biology of Information, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens