I want to understand what features of reasoning are shared across physical systems that share no common ancestor, or at least do not share a common ancestor for a very very long time. I have a strong hunch that this will turn out to matter a lot to safety, and that any approach to formal safety that does not recognize bacteria as trying to protect their own genetic beauty by learning about their environments is one that is doomed to failure.
FEP is definitionally true of anything that maintains its bodily integrity (or whatever). So I claim that if you think you’ve learned something nontrivial from FEP, something that isn’t inherently, definitionally, part of what it means for an organism to have bodily integrity (or whatever), then I think you’re wrong about what FEP says.
In particular, I think you were suggesting in your comment that FEP implies that bacteria learn about their environments, but I don’t think FEP implies that. It seems to me that it’s obviously possible for there to be a living organism that doesn’t have the capacity to learn anything about its environment. (E.g. imagine a very simple organism that evolved in an extremely, or even perfectly, homogeneous environment. No it’s not realistic, but it’s certainly possible in principle, right?) Since FEP universally applies to everything, it cannot actually imply that bacteria will learn anything about their environment. They might, because learning about one’s environment is often a useful thing to do, but we didn’t need FEP to learn that fact, it’s obvious.
(It’s tricky because I think FEP people often make various additional assumptions on top of FEP itself—assumptions which might or might not apply in any particular animal—without always being clear that that’s what they’re doing. It’s also tricky because FEP discussions use suggestive variable names that can potentially be misleading, I think.)
It seems to me that it’s obviously possible for there to be a living organism that doesn’t have the capacity to learn anything about its environment. (E.g. imagine a very simple organism that evolved in an extremely, or even perfectly, homogeneous environment. No it’s not realistic, but it’s certainly possible in principle, right?)
Except, this is wrong. FEP is a tautology like Noether’s theorem. Indeed, it implies that even rocks “learn” about their environment (the temperature of the rock is the inference about the temperature of the outside environment). But Active Inference, which is a process theory of agency is far from a tautology. FEP should best be understood as a mathematical framework that “sets the stage” for Active Inference and sort of explains the nature of the objects that Active Inference operates with, but couldn’t be derived from the FEP (the FEP literature often calls Active Inference a “corollary” of the FEP, which sort of implies the contrary, which is confusing; besides, FEP and Active Inference are hopelessly confused in text and speech, especially by people who are not experts in this theory, or even by experts, but outside of papers). See this comment for further discussion.
FEP is definitionally true of anything that maintains its bodily integrity (or whatever). So I claim that if you think you’ve learned something nontrivial from FEP, something that isn’t inherently, definitionally, part of what it means for an organism to have bodily integrity (or whatever), then I think you’re wrong about what FEP says.
In particular, I think you were suggesting in your comment that FEP implies that bacteria learn about their environments, but I don’t think FEP implies that. It seems to me that it’s obviously possible for there to be a living organism that doesn’t have the capacity to learn anything about its environment. (E.g. imagine a very simple organism that evolved in an extremely, or even perfectly, homogeneous environment. No it’s not realistic, but it’s certainly possible in principle, right?) Since FEP universally applies to everything, it cannot actually imply that bacteria will learn anything about their environment. They might, because learning about one’s environment is often a useful thing to do, but we didn’t need FEP to learn that fact, it’s obvious.
(It’s tricky because I think FEP people often make various additional assumptions on top of FEP itself—assumptions which might or might not apply in any particular animal—without always being clear that that’s what they’re doing. It’s also tricky because FEP discussions use suggestive variable names that can potentially be misleading, I think.)
Tangentially, this might be interesting to model in https://znah.net/lenia/
Yeah, I think I’m sold on the key point.
Except, this is wrong. FEP is a tautology like Noether’s theorem. Indeed, it implies that even rocks “learn” about their environment (the temperature of the rock is the inference about the temperature of the outside environment). But Active Inference, which is a process theory of agency is far from a tautology. FEP should best be understood as a mathematical framework that “sets the stage” for Active Inference and sort of explains the nature of the objects that Active Inference operates with, but couldn’t be derived from the FEP (the FEP literature often calls Active Inference a “corollary” of the FEP, which sort of implies the contrary, which is confusing; besides, FEP and Active Inference are hopelessly confused in text and speech, especially by people who are not experts in this theory, or even by experts, but outside of papers). See this comment for further discussion.