so the free-energy principle originally emerged from systems neuroscience as a way a principal way of understanding what the brain

does and how it does it subsequently the principles proved to be so simple and so powerful that they've been applied in a variety of
context now so one could almost regard the free-energy principle as an organizing principle for any living system that
00:36
shows the characteristics of life so the
00:40
reason I started that is that there are
00:41
two roads to explaining or understanding
00:44
the free-energy principle we can either
00:46
start from the perspective of people
00:49
like Helmholtz in the 19th century
00:52
trying to understand and conscious
00:54
inference in the brain and build a story
00:56
through allowances by synthesis and
00:59
psychology through to current and
01:02
exciting developments machine learning
01:04
things like Geoffrey Hinton's Helmholtz
01:06
machine and then how that has become
01:08
contextualized in their nativist or the
01:11
embodied cognition context and
01:14
generalizing these notions and you end
01:15
up with the free-energy principle or you
01:19
can start from the top and just ask very
01:21
simple questions about what it is to be
01:24
alive and if you are alive and you exist
01:27
what sorts of behaviors must you show
01:30
and if that if you answer those
01:32
questions you end up with exactly the
01:34
same answers that you would have got
01:37
have you followed the historical route
01:40
for brevity I'll take the high road I'll
01:43
go from the minimalist assumptions that
01:47
things exist and to try and unpack that
01:50
and show how one can get to notions of
01:53
the brain as an inference engine sometimes called the Bayesian brain hypothesis, the brain as one of the best examples of an organ
that is actively constructing explanations for its own sampling of the world
so this acting this inactive perspective is very important because not only does
02:17
the brain then have to explain all the
02:20
sensory input it also has to choose
02:23
which sensory input the sample it is in
02:25
charge of gathering information evidence
02:28
for its own predictions and own beliefs
02:32
about the world but I've jumped ahead so
02:36
now

I have to explain to you why is it that any system that exists will behave as if it has a model of the world and it's trying to gather
evidence for its own model of the world. So, the stories start just by acknowledging that if you want to talk about something there has
to be a separation between the thing you're talking about and everything else and in fact there was there were no boundaries there
would be nothing because there'd be no distinction being a thing and not that thing.
Statistically speaking that distinction or that boundary is called a Markov blanket.
It's just a mathematical way of separating states of some abstract world system organism culture life cell brain into things that are
internal to the boundary that are owned by that system and things that are outside the boundary that are external to the system.
So, it could be a cell and it's Miller it could be a phenotype could be me in my environment it could be blood at any scale there has to
be this division now the very existence of that separation that Markov blanket in conjunction with the assumption that that system
exists over time tells you something quite profound about the behavior of the internal states and the states that constitute the Markov
blanket. This is a bit abstract but is actually quite simple. The Markov blanket has two bits turd there's the sensory states that are just
defined because they don't influence the external states but they do influence the internal states of sensory
04:28
information for example would be
04:30
mediated by sensory states as I get from
04:33
the outside world into my internal world
04:35
my brain and there are active states
04:37
that go in the other direction so they
04:40
are in they influence external space but
04:42
I'm not influenced by the external
04:44
States they are actually dependent upon
04:46
the internal States so if I take me as a
04:50
model of my world my active state would
04:53
be how I am currently moving whereas my
04:55
sensory states would be the activity of
04:57
my photoreceptors all the sensory organs
05:00
and sensory epithelia I had in my
05:02
disposal let's put that Markov blanket
05:06
aside for one moment and just think what
05:09
it means for a system to exist over
05:13
periods of time what that means is that
05:16
it is effectively resisting a dispersion
05:21
by random fluctuations so perhaps the
05:24
simplest example here would be if I
05:26
dropped or placed a drop of ink in a cup
05:33
of water then almost immediately would
05:36
start to disperse as random fluctuations
05:38
disperse all the molecules around and I
05:42
would not call that drop of ink a living
05:45
drop of ink because it has dispersed if
05:48
however I placed a drop of ink in some
05:52
water and then to your amazement you saw
05:55
it gather itself up then relaxed bitten
05:57
and gather its up up again like it was
05:59
breathing as if time was reversed you
06:03
would say there's something very
06:04
peculiar about that drop of ink it's
06:06
almost as if it was living and you
06:07
become quickly convinced it was alive
06:09
and the only reason you as endow it with
06:13
the property of self organized life
06:15
biotic self-organization is it it's not
06:18
dispersing and the only reason it's not
06:21
dispersing is that all of its internal
06:25
state and it's Markov blanket the
06:27
separate
06:27
from the rest of the water are moving
06:30
towards the center of the drop they so
06:35
that the flow of the molecules of the
06:37
system is exactly countering the
06:41
dispersive forces that are trying to
06:44
disperse it throughout the water now
06:46
that flow operationally or
06:49
mathematically can provably be shown to
06:52
be simply moving uphill on the
06:56
probability distribution of where the
06:58
ink molecules should be and that
07:01
probability distribution mathematically
07:04
is also the same something called
07:06
Bayesian model evidence I can't let it
07:09
have time to go into it but is this a
07:11
beautiful observation that the the
07:13
defining dynamics of any system that
07:16
does not dissipate over time is that
07:19
they on average will move of their
07:23
states will flow so as to maximize model
07:28
evidence bayesian model evidence so that
07:31
means that if a system exists then it
07:35
will appear to maximize Bayesian model
07:38
Evans it will appear to be a little
07:39
Bayesian engine it'll appear as if it
07:42
has a model of its world why well
07:44
because that system let's now go back to
07:47
the Markov blanket that comprises the
07:49
active and sensory states and then and
07:52
the internal states that are encompassed
07:55
by the Markov blanket the law the rule
07:57
which says that all of the states
08:00
measurement must maximize model evidence
08:03
which is also known as marginal
08:06
likelihood that is also an inverse upper
08:10
bounded by free energy hence the free
08:12
energy principle all of those states
08:13
have to maximize marginal likelihood or
08:16
minimize for energy including action
08:19
that means action and sensations and the
08:22
internal states are all doing the same
08:24
thing which means that we can understand
08:27
the internal states of the brain as
08:30
modeling the world because they are
08:32
maximized in the Bayesian model evidence
08:34
for me or a model of the world at the
08:38
same time my action is also trying to
08:41
maximize the evidence for my model of
08:43
the world so put very simply almost by
08:46
definition I am in the game of garnering
08:52
information that maximizes the evidence
08:55
why my own existence and that's
08:57
basically the free energy principle it's
09:00
a corollary or a consequence of any
09:03
system that doesn't dissipate it looks
09:06
as if it has to behave as if it is
09:10
maximizing actively soliciting
09:13
information from the environment and
09:15
modeling that information as a model of
09:18
the environment to maximize the evidence
09:20
for its own existence and that's where
09:22
we started with the long history of the
09:26
Helmholtz this notion of unconscious
09:28
inference right through to modern day
09:31
machine learning formulations for
09:34
example the Helmholtz machine and
09:37
Geoffrey Hinton and Enid ayah that can
09:40
be unpacked at many many different
09:42
levels and it has provided a very useful
09:45
framework within which to understand how
09:48
that free energy principle is complied
09:51
with by the biology in the anatomy in
09:53
the physiology of the brain what it
09:55
tells you is that the anatomy of any
09:58
system has to contain with it a model of
10:01
the environment in which that system is
10:03
immersed which means that if we live in
10:06
a world that has some deep hierarchical
10:09
structure in which there is action at a
10:12
distance for example you know so that
10:15
the color of objects around me is
10:18
determined by the incident light as it
10:21
comes almost instantaneously to my eye
10:23
or a falling body is caused by gravity
10:26
then my brain must recapitulate that
10:30
causal structure and of course it does
10:32
the very fact we have nerve cells with
10:35
long slender connections connecting each
10:38
other at a distance speaks exactly to
10:41
the fountain of the causal architectures
10:43
of the world that we inhabit how this
10:46
action at a distance and the sparse
10:48
connectivity furthermore the
10:50
hierarchical structure of the world
10:52
is recapitulated in the neuronal
10:54
structures that constitute the
10:57
hierarchies of the connectome or the
11:01
hierarchical disposition of functionally
11:05
specialized brain areas if the brain is
11:08
truly a statistical model of the world
11:11
in in habits can we understand some
11:14
fundaments of main organizations such as
11:17
the distinction between what and where
11:20
streams in the brain so a very powerful
11:23
observation a principle of functional
11:26
specialization is that we're processing
11:29
from a stream of brain areas roughly
11:33
down here and a more dorsal stream is
11:35
concerned with what that may be a simple
11:38
reflection of the fact that we live in a
11:40
universe where different things can be
11:43
in different positions so that we can
11:46
set statistically separate the what
11:48
nurse from the wareness if we lived in a
11:51
universe where whenever something moved
11:53
it also changed its nature we couldn't
11:55
do them so just by looking at the brain
11:57
I can tell you the sort of universe that
11:59
you inhabit under the free-energy
12:01
principle under the assumption that your
12:04
brain has become a model of the
12:07
environment that it inhabits the failure
12:10
principle has been quite useful from my
12:13
perspective and that of my colleagues
12:14
largely because it shows the connections
12:19
between previous theories so there are
12:23
many global brain theories that have
12:25
been brought to bear for example the
12:28
principle of minimum redundancy and
12:30
maximum efficiency notions of the brain
12:33
extracting as much information as they
12:35
can from the environment there are other
12:38
theories arm that speak to how we select
12:44
and value certain behaviors it's useful
12:47
to see how all of these become special
12:49
cases of a variational principle which
12:52
in essence is that is the free energy
12:55
principle which means that you can you
12:59
can now talk to different disciplines
13:01
and see how one particular concept there
13:05
and all the empirical evidence speaks to
13:08
another theoretical construct and
13:11
essentially see how they're approaching
13:13
the same problem from different
13:14
perspectives because you've got a
13:17
principle framework it also allows you
13:19
to make very particular hypotheses about
13:23
the process theories that will be that
13:26
would conform to the principle so I've
13:28
said so far is that in principle every
13:31
internal state every action I make every
13:33
sensation that I gather should be in the
13:36
service of minimizing very fulfilling or
13:38
maximizing marginal likelihood how how
13:40
do you do that how does the brain do
13:42
that but if you know what the objective
13:45
function is if you know what the process
13:47
the imperatives are you can then cast it
13:51
in terms of processes so for example I
13:54
can say well this minimization
13:57
variational free energy or maximization
13:59
of basic model evidence is a hill
14:04
climbing or gradient descent algorithm
14:06
so I can now write down a differential
14:08
equation where everything every year
14:11
onal state physiological variable in the
14:14
brain now becomes describable as a
14:17
differential equation given other states
14:19
in the brain and if that equation is
14:22
true then I can now go and map the
14:26
variables to physiological processes if
14:28
one plays that game you can get an inn
14:30
you can go an enormous way and starting
14:33
to understand not just the anatomy but
14:35
also the physiology and also you can
14:37
generate questions because they're all
14:39
turn ative process theories they're all
14:41
conformed with the same principle so
14:43
does the brain use sampling techniques
14:47
to maximize model evidence or does it
14:50
use Greenhill cry climbing optimization
14:53
schemes with variational schemes so that
14:56
you start to generate a whole testable
14:59
raft of hypotheses pertain to the
15:01
process theory they're all consistent
15:04
with the overarching principle