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Keeping it Real: Research Program Physicalism and the Free Energy Principle

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Abstract

The Free Energy Principle (FEP) states that all biological self-organizing systems must minimize variational free energy. The acceptance of this principle has given rise to a popular and far-reaching theoretical and empirical approach to the study of the brain and living organisms. Despite the popularity of the FEP approach, little discussion has ensued about its ontological status and implications. By understanding physicalism as an interdisciplinary research program that aims to offer compositional explanations of mental phenomena, this paper articulates what it would mean for the FEP approach to be part of research program physicalism and to corroborate a physicalist outlook. In doing so, this paper contributes both to philosophical discussions regarding the FEP approach and to the literature on physicalism. It does the former by explicating the metaphysical standing of the FEP approach. It does the latter by showing how cutting-edge research in the empirical sciences of the mind can inform our attitudes regarding physicalism.

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Notes

  1. Talk of “unquestionably physical” could mean “fundamentally physical” but it does not have to. There is no a priori guarantee that a fundamental level exists. More importantly, fundamentality is not necessary for physicalism (Montero, 2006; cf. Brown & Ladyman, 2009; Schaffer, 2003).

  2. This expression of the modal commitments of old (traditional) physicalism isn’t exact. We can make some progress by adding the requirement that the two worlds are minimal physical duplicates (Jackson, 1998). So, according to old physicalism, if two worlds are minimal physical duplicates, then they are duplicates simpliciter.

  3. To avoid potential misunderstanding, it is important to emphasize that proponents of FEP utilize “sensory” in a liberal and non-standard way. Sensory states are any states of an organism that stand in a causal relationship to the environment. As such, the FEP applies not just to organisms with a central nervous system but to all self-organizing systems that are affected by and can respond to environmental changes (Friston & Stephan, 2007, p. 424; see also, Friston, 2009, p. 293). It is this liberal understanding of sensory states that has allowed FEP researchers to argue that most biological systems—including plants and, even, microorganisms—are, in some sense, cognitive (see, e.g., Calvo & Friston, 2017; Sims, 2016).

  4. If {N} is a set of random variables, then the Markov blanket for a variable x that is a member of {N} is a subset of {N}, {M}, such that {M} contains all random variables that “shield” x from all other variables in {N}. Specifically, if we fix the values of the variables in {M} then x would be conditionally independent of all other variables in {N}. Essentially, the Markov blanket of x is the “only knowledge one may need to predict the behavior of that variable” (Colombo & Wright, 2021, S3471).

  5. For instance, even though the true posterior might be incredibly complex, the surrogate variational density can be assumed to be a Gaussian distribution.

  6. Both the FEP approach and predictive coding models of the brain are tasked with offering a specification of the conditions under which organisms minimize prediction errors via perception and when they do so via action (or active inference). Stated otherwise, one would like to know when an organism updates their expectations on the basis of sensory signals and when they choose to retain those expectations and verify them by changing their relationship to the environment. Suppose, for example, that an agent is experiencing thirst. Such an experience should prompt the agent to minimize relevant prediction errors. Assuming that these errors are indicative of a deviation from homeostasis, then why is the agent moved to seek water instead of revising its homeostatic expectations? An answer to this question can be provided if we utilize the notion of “stubborn predictions” (for a development of this view, see Yon et al., 2019). Be it because they are the products of evolution, the result of some ontogenetic process, or the outcome of learning and cultural inculcation, some predictions are recalcitrant to change. For instance, expectations about homeostasis and how the body works, or about basic laws of physics (e.g., how gravity works) appear to be stubborn in that sense. They have always been verified in the past. As a result, the organism is not free to replace them with some other predictions. We are grateful to an anonymous reviewer for urging us to address this issue.

  7. We acknowledge the existence of other—indeed, more orthodox—definitions of physicalism. Although we do not have the space to fully defend research program physicalism here, we propose that it constrains and directs research into implementation theories in specific ways that traditional versions of physicalism may not (see Sects. 5 and 6 below).

  8. Although it is possible to assert a priori that the presence of a compositional explanation of phenomenon Γ is sufficient (but not necessary) in order for Γ to be rendered nothing over and above its components, this is not how research program physicalism understands the use of compositional explanations. Compositional explanations are selected by research program physicalism as exemplary because scientists pose them to be exemplary forms of explanations. Thus, our reliance on compositional explanations is not based on conceptual analyses or philosophical intuitions about the nature of explanation. Rather, we assert that compositional explanations are sufficient because of their longstanding success and impressive track record in the physical sciences.

  9. This debate has been part of a broader discussion of whether the FEP is compatible with scientific realism or requires a commitment to instrumentalism (Andrews, 2021; Bruineberg et al., 2021; Kirchhoff, Kiverstien, & Robertson, 2021).

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Louisville, 313 Bingham Humanities Building, 40292, Louisville, KY, USA

    Andreas Elpidorou & Guy Dove

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Elpidorou, A., Dove, G. Keeping it Real: Research Program Physicalism and the Free Energy Principle. Topoi 42, 733–744 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-022-09852-8

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