Internal outset:Exploring empirical and philosophical implications of the free-energy principle

The present dissertation took the free-energy principle (FEP) as its starting point, from which we tried to draw both philosophical and empirical consequences. Both chapter 2 and 3 departed from the idea that conscious perception depends on global amplification of sensory input, and that the basal ganglia (BG) and its irrigation by dopamine play a crucial role in gating information, conscious access, and the selection of a relevant internal model given available sensory data. The BG are thought to play this role due to their modulatory influence on thalamocortical connectivity. Because much of the evidence implicating the BG in these processes in humans is correlational, we explored two ways of manipulating BG activity experimentally. Chapter 4 investigates the philosophical heritage implicitly touched on by the FEP, which provides an alternative philosophical and historical background for present-day research in cognitive neuroscience. Friston’s FEP has been received with great enthusiasm. With good reason: it not only makes the bold claim to a unifying theory of the brain, but it is presented as an a priori principle applicable to living systems in general. In this paper, we set out to show how the breadth of scope of Friston’s framework converges with the dialectics of Georg Hegel. Through an appeal to the work of Catherine Malabou, we aimed to demonstrate how Friston not only reinvigorates Hegelian dialectics from the perspective of neuroscience, but that the implicit alignment with Hegel necessitates a reading of the FEP from the perspective of Hegel’s speculative philosophy. It is this reading that moves beyond the discussion between cognitivism and enactivism surrounding Friston’s framework; beyond the question whether the organism is a secluded entity separated from its surroundings, or whether it is a dynamical system characterized by perpetual openness and mutual exchange. From a Hegelian perspective, it is the tension between both positions itself that is operative at the level of the organism; as a contradiction the organism sustains over the course of its life. Not only does the organism’s secluded existence depend on a perpetual relation with its surroundings, but the condition for there to be such a relation is the existence of a secluded entity. We intended to show how this contradiction – tension internalized – is at the center of Friston’s anticipatory organism; how it is this contradiction that grounds the perpetual process of free energy minimization. Chapter 5 is the report of a study attempting to contrast the FEP’s perspective with that of traditional cognitive neuroscience. While the FEP casts the brain as an organism’s predictive model of how its world works and will continue to work in the future in which action is afforded a central place, research on the brain’s predictive capacities remains beholden to traditional research practices in which participants are passively shown stimuli without their active involvement (as we also did in Chapters 2 and 3). The current study is an investigation into ways in which self-generated predictions may differ from externally induced predictions. Participants completed a volatile spatial attention task under both conditions (externally/cue-induced, internally/action-induced) on different days. We used the Hierarchical Gaussian Filter, an approximate Bayesian inference model, to determine subject-specific parameters of belief-updating and inferred volatility. We found preliminary evidence in support of self-generated predictions incurring a larger reaction time cost when violated compared to predictions induced by sensory cue, which translated to participants’ increased sensitivity to changes in environmental volatility. Our results suggest that internally generated predictions may be afforded more weight, but these results are complicated by session order and duration effects, as well as a lack of statistical power

Surrogates for numerical simulations; optimization of eddy-promoter heat exchangers

Although the advent of fast and inexpensive parallel computers has rendered numerous previously intractable calculations feasible, many numerical simulations remain too resource-intensive to be directly inserted in engineering optimization efforts. An attractive alternative to direct insertion considers models for computational systems: the expensive simulation is evoked only to construct and validate a simplified, input-output model; this simplified input-output model then serves as a simulation surrogate in subsequent engineering optimization studies. A simple 'Bayesian-validated' statistical framework for the construction, validation, and purposive application of static computer simulation surrogates is presented. As an example, dissipation-transport optimization of laminar-flow eddy-promoter heat exchangers are considered: parallel spectral element Navier-Stokes calculations serve to construct and validate surrogates for the flowrate and Nusselt number; these surrogates then represent the originating Navier-Stokes equations in the ensuing design process

Considerations in designing a cybernetic simple 'learning' model; and an overview of the problem of modelling learning

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Learning is viewed as a central feature of living systems and must be manifested in any artifact that claims to exhibit general intelligence. The central aims of the thesis are twofold: (1) - To review and critically assess the empirical and theoretical aspects of learning as have been addressed in a multitude of disciplines, with the aim of extracting fundamental features and elements. (2) - To develop a more systematic approach to the cybernetic modelling of learning than has been achieved hitherto. In pursuit of aim (1) above the following discussions are included: Historical and Philosophical backgrounds; Natural learning, both physiological and psychological aspects; Hierarchies of learning identified in the evolutionary, functional and developmental senses; An extensive section on the general problem of modelling of learning and the formal tools, is included as a link between aims (1) and (2). Following this a systematic and historically oriented study of cybernetic and other related approaches to the problem of modelling of learning is presented. This then leads to the development of a state-of-the-art general purpose experimental cybernetic learning model. The programming and use of this model is also fully described, including an elaborate scheme for the manifestation of simple learning

Natural Computing and Beyond

This book contains the joint proceedings of the Winter School of Hakodate (WSH) 2011 held in Hakodate, Japan, March 15–16, 2011, and the 6th International Workshop on Natural Computing (6th IWNC) held in Tokyo, Japan, March 28–30, 2012, organized by the Special Interest Group of Natural Computing (SIG-NAC), the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence (JSAI). This volume compiles refereed contributions to various aspects of natural computing, ranging from computing with slime mold, artificial chemistry, eco-physics, and synthetic biology, to computational aesthetics

Cutting God in Half - And Putting the Pieces Together Again: A New Approach to Philosophy

Cutting God in Half argues that, in order to tackle climate change, world poverty, extinction of species and our other global problems rather better than we are doing at present we need to bring about a revolution in science, and in academia more generally. We need to put our problems of living – personal, social, global – at the heart of the academic enterprise. How our human world, imbued with meaning and value, can exist and best flourish embedded in the physical universe is, the book argues, our basic problem. It is our fundamental philosophical problem, our fundamental problem of knowledge and understanding, and our fundamental practical problem of living. It is this problem that we fail, at present, to recognize as fundamental – to our cost. It can be understood to arise as a result of cutting God in half – severing the God of Cosmic Power from the God of Value. The first is Einstein’s God, the underlying unity in the physical universe that determines how events occur. The second is what is of most value associated with human life – and sentient life more generally. Having cut God in half in this way, the problem then becomes to see how the two halves can be put together again. This book tackles outstanding aspects of this problem, and in doing so throws out original ideas about science, education, religion, evolutionary theory, free will, quantum theory, and how we should go about tackling our impending global crises. It transpires that bringing our basic problem into sharp focus has revolutionary implications. It becomes clear how and why many aspects of our social and cultural world urgently need to be transformed. Cutting God in Half is written in a lively, accessible style, and ought to be essential reading for anyone concerned about ultimate questions – the nature of the universe, the meaning of life, the future of humanity

Being And The Good: Natural Teleology In Early Modern German Philosophy

This dissertation examines the problem of teleology in early modern German philosophy. The problem, briefly, is to account for the proper sources and conditions of the use of teleological concepts such as design, purpose, function, or end in explaining nature. In its modern guise, the status of these concepts becomes problematic with the rise of modern science in the seventeenth century, which reconceived the physical world as fundamentally inert and purposeless and rejected the medieval view of the world as governed by goal-directed powers. This disssertation argues that the reception of the new science in Germany was deeply conditioned by the metaphysics of late-medieval scholasticism. It situates the better known thinkers of the German Enlightenment, such as Gottfried Leibniz, Christian Wolff, and Immanuel Kant, in relation to the later medieval tradition, originating with sixteenth- and seventeenth-century authors such as Francisco Suárez, Christoph Scheibler, and Johann Clauberg. I show that Leibniz, Wolff, and Kant inherit from neo-scholasticism two classical assumptions bearing on teleology: first, a version of the classical thesis of the equation of being and the good (ens et bonum convertuntur), or that every being manifests goodness or desirability in some measure; and second, a tight conceptual dependence of final causation on rational cognition such that any appeal to purposes or ends in explanation entails an appeal to rationality. Leibniz’s, Wolff’s, and Kant’s acceptance of these positions underlies their shared commitment to view not only goal-directed animal behavior but also any contingent unity of laws (such as the unification of Newtonian laws of motion through the law of universal gravitation) as presupposing a rational connection. Teleological unity, or a unity of purpose, appears in this tradition as an evident natural fact in need of explanation at the cosmological, biological, and psychological levels. At the same time, Kant departs from his predecessors in crucial respects. For Kant, the conditions for legitimately judging nature as if it were purposively constructed are borrowed not from a divine guarantee of order but from the essence of human reason itself, when, in his terms, reason is properly described as a goal-directed natural power. The problem of teleology, with Kant, becomes reconfigured as essentially concerned with the ends of human reason

The End Signs! Are We Getting the Message?

The problem addressed in this dissertation has three dimensions: imminent global catastrophe, the elitist tyranny responsible for it, and Christian detachment from both. The purpose of this dissertation is not to solve the problem in any of those three dimensions. The aim is threefold—to deconstructively demonstrate the reality of the problem; to expose its historical roots in philosophy, science, and theology; and to offer a case-study example of how it the problem may be clearly viewed and understood for the purposes of 21st century Christian life. The case study is not simple or easy, but neither is the problem it addresses. Semiotics—theory of signs—is the philosophical frame of reference, as pioneered by American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). James H. Fetzer provides intensional realism as a Peircean semiotic philosophy of science. Christian realism based on Peirce’s theory of signs is a key theme, drawn from Leonard Sweet’s Christianity. The constructive example that finishes the dissertation it represents an individual’s apologetic Christian realism as a single-case study example, including philosophical and scientific foundations. At the same time, it also represents a viable de-secularized immanent frame and social imaginary for individual as well as relational Christian being and presence in 21st century reality.35 35 Sweet, So Beautiful and Leonard Sweet, Giving Blood: A Fresh Paradigm for Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), Kindle; James H. Fetzer, Scientific Knowledge: Causation, Explanation, and Corroboration, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 69 (Dordrecht, NL: Springer Netherlands, 1981); James H. Fetzer, Computers and Cognition: Why Minds Are Not Machines, Studies in Cognitive Systems vol. 25 (Dordrecht, NL: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001); .Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009); the works of Charles Sanders Peirce (see APPENDICES: Abbreviations, Citing Charles Sanders Peirce). Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries; Taylor, A Secular Age; Taylor, “Buffered and Porous Selves.

Evolution And Ethics

Does evolution inform the ancient debate about the roles that instinct (emotion/passion/sentiment/feeling) and reason do and/or should play in how we decide what to do? Evolutionary ethicists typically adopt Darwinism as a suitable explanation for evolution, and on that basis draw conclusions about moral epistemology. However, if Darwinism is to be offered as a premise from which conclusions about moral epistemology are drawn, in order to assess such arguments we must assess that premise. This reveals the highly speculative and metaphysical quality of our theoretical explanations for how evolution happens. Clarifying that helps to facilitate an assessment of the epistemological claims of evolutionary ethicists. There are four general ways that instinct and reason can function in moral deliberation: descriptive instinctivism asserts that moral deliberation is necessarily a matter of instincts because control of the instincts by our faculty of reason is regarded (descriptively) as impossible; descriptive rationalism asserts that moral deliberation is necessarily a matter of reasoning, which (descriptively) must control instinct; prescriptive instinctivism asserts that moral deliberation can involve both rationality and instinct but prescribes following our instincts; prescriptive rationalism also asserts that deliberation can be either instinctive or rational but prescribes following reason. Micheal Ruse (2012), Peter Singer (2011), and Philip Kitcher (2011) each adopt Darwinism and on that basis arrive at descriptive instinctivism, descriptive rationalism, and prescriptive instinctivism, respectively. Our current level of understanding about evolution implies that prescriptive rationalism is a more practical approach to ethical deliberation than the other three alternatives described. Evolution can inform moral epistemology, but only very generally by helping to inform us of what we can justifiably believe about ourselves and nature

Conceptual and cognitive problems in cybernetics

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Controversies have existed for some time about cybernetics as a subject and difficulties have existed for students in obtaining an overview despite the fact that at some level several cybernetics concepts can be grasped by twelve year olds. An attempt is made to unpack the notion of a subject entity and to indicate how far elements in cybernetics conform to such a concept within a generally acceptable philosophy of science. Ambiguities and controversies among key themes of cybernetics are examined and resolutions offered. How far the nature of cybernetics is likely to create problems of understanding is discussed, along with approaches towards the empirical examination of how cybernetic ideas are understood. An approach to better understanding is formulated and used in an investigation of how and how effectively the concept of feedback is grasped by various groups. Suggestions are offered from the foregoing analysis as to the balance of problems within cybernetics and effective strategies for the future

Understanding of biological teleology from a naturalistic perspective

To the extent that teleological thinking is metaphysically suspect, many theorists attempt to shift the stigma of functional explanations by reducing function ascriptions, and aim thus to de-legitimise an appeal to teleological causal relations in an analysis of function. The point is to dispel the mystery which envelops the application of function concepts by reformulating biological functional explanations so as to dispense with teleology. My project is to interrogate the success with which teleological explanations have thus been eliminated in the biological sciences, and, over the course of this thesis, I conclude that a kind of teleological causation nevertheless remains the most adequate explanatory ground of natural products. My proposal is that functional explanations are causal explanations for the presence and maintenance of self-reproducing systems. I contend that, insofar as the attribution of function presupposes the valuation of a function-bearing system as a causal necessity for its constituent parts, functional explanation references distinct and irreducible holistic properties. Using Kantian metaphysics to frame the discussion, this thesis aims first to explore critically the subject of functional characterisations of biological phenomena, and second, the metaphysical basis of modern science. Its chief contributions to the philosophical function debate reside in proposing novel arguments in justification of what I consider is an improved formulation of an attempted definition of biological function, in which teleological causal powers are explicitly recognised and accommodated in functional explanation. Moreover, this thesis attempts a naturalistic reconstruction of the metaphysical entailments of the real causality of a whol