ArticleEntropy (Basel, Switzerland)2020
Is the Free-Energy Principle a Formal Theory of Semantics? From Variational Density Dynamics to Neural and Phenotypic Representations.
Article in Entropy (Basel, Switzerland), 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed.
- How do inner screens enable imaginative experience? Applying the free-energy principle directly to the study of conscious experience.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2025Article
- On Bayesian mechanics: a physics of and by beliefs.Interface focus · 2023Article
- An Enactive-Ecological Model to Guide Patient-Centered Osteopathic Care.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- The Problem of Meaning: The Free Energy Principle and Artificial Agency.Frontiers in neurorobotics · 2022Article
- Beauty and Uncertainty as Transformative Factors: A Free Energy Principle Account of Aesthetic Diagnosis and Intervention in Gestalt Psychotherapy.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2022Article
- The nature of beliefs and believing.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Osteopathic Care as (En)active Inference: A Theoretical Framework for Developing an Integrative Hypothesis in Osteopathy.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- From Generative Models to Generative Passages: A Computational Approach to (Neuro) Phenomenology.Review of philosophy and psychology · 2022Article
- Active inference, selective attention, and the cocktail party problem.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2021Review
- Memory and Markov Blankets.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Markov blankets in the brain.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2021Review
- The Free Energy Principle: Good Science and Questionable Philosophy in a Grand Unifying Theory.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Active Inference: Applicability to Different Types of Social Organization Explained through Reference to Industrial Engineering and Quality Management.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- On the Importance of Being Flexible: Dynamic Brain Networks and Their Potential Functional Significances.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2021Review
- A critical analysis of Markovian monism.Synthese · 2021Article
- Neural and phenotypic representation under the free-energy principle.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2021Review
- Information Length Analysis of Linear Autonomous Stochastic Processes.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
- An Algorithmic Metaphysics of Self-Patterns.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
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3 authors.
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Abstract
The aim of this paper is twofold: (1) to assess whether the construct of neural representations plays an explanatory role under the variational free-energy principle and its corollary process theory, active inference; and (2) if so, to assess which philosophical stance-in relation to the ontological and epistemological status of representations-is most appropriate. We focus on non-realist (deflationary and fictionalist-instrumentalist) approaches. We consider a deflationary account of mental representation, according to which the explanatorily relevant contents of neural representations are mathematical, rather than cognitive, and a fictionalist or instrumentalist account, according to which representations are scientifically useful fictions that serve explanatory (and other) aims. After reviewing the free-energy principle and active inference, we argue that the model of adaptive phenotypes under the free-energy principle can be used to furnish a formal semantics, enabling us to assign semantic content to specific phenotypic states (the internal states of a Markovian system that exists far from equilibrium). We propose a modified fictionalist account-an
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