How Free Energy Constructs Our Reality | Michael Levin and Karl Friston

Curt Jaimungal is joined by Michael Levin and Karl Friston. This conversation incorporates insights from physics and information theory, particularly regarding self-organization and the significance of entropy and free energy. As a listener of TOE you can get a special 20% off discount to The Economist and all it has to offer! Visit https://www.economist.com/toe Join My New Substack (Personal Writings): https://curtjaimungal.substack.com Listen on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/SpotifyTOE Become a YouTube Member (Early Access Videos): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdWIQh9DGG6uhJk8eyIFl1w/join Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 3:43 The Free Energy Principle Explained 5:41 Creativity and Adaptive Utilization 11:56 In-Painting vs. Out-Painting 15:33 The Unreliable Medium of Biology 20:05 Aging: Noise or Psychological? 25:25 The Nature of Selfhood 45:10 Distinctions in Organic and Psychological Disease 48:54 Goal-Directed Systems and Aging 52:32 The Dynamics of Life and Death 55:49 Continuous Self in a Changing Form 1:01:35 The Constructive Nature of Science 1:08:02 Inferring Actions and Counterfactuals 1:11:40 Closing Thoughts and Future Conversations Links Mentioned: - Michael’s website: https://thoughtforms.life/ - Karl’s publications: https://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~karl/ - Michael’s previous appearance on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aLhkm6QUgA - Karl’s previous appearance on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk4NZorRjCo - Michael on Anthrobots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG6GIzNM0aM - Michael’s paper on stress sharing as cognitive glue for collective intelligences: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006291X2400932X?ref=pdf_download&fr=RR-2&rr=911840d57c51eace - Karl and Michael with Chris Fields on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6eJ44Jq_pw - Karl Friston on the ‘Free Energy Principle’ on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v7LBABwZKA - Michael’s recent paper with Chris Fields: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1571064525000089?dgcid=coauthor - Top-down models in biology (paper): https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10.1098/rsif.2016.0555 Geoffrey Hinton on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_DUft-BdIE Support TOE on Patreon: https://patreon.com/curtjaimungal Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs #science #podcast #reality #mind #consciousness #theoreticalphysics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices