The Markov blankets of life: autonomy, active inference and the free energy principle

This work addresses the autonomous organization of biological systems. It does so by considering the boundaries of biological systems, from individual cells to , in terms of the presence of Markov blankets under the active inference scheme-a corollary of the free energy principle. A Markov blanket d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the Royal Society interface Vol. 15; no. 138
Main Authors: Kirchhoff, Michael, Parr, Thomas, Palacios, Ensor, Friston, Karl, Kiverstein, Julian
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: England 01.01.2018
Subjects:
Entropy
Markov Chains
Models, Biological
ensemble Markov blanket
autonomy
Markov blanket
free energy principle
active inference
ISSN:1742-5662, 1742-5662
Online Access:Get more information
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Summary:This work addresses the autonomous organization of biological systems. It does so by considering the boundaries of biological systems, from individual cells to , in terms of the presence of Markov blankets under the active inference scheme-a corollary of the free energy principle. A Markov blanket defines the boundaries of a system in a statistical sense. Here we consider how a collective of Markov blankets can self-assemble into a global system that itself has a Markov blanket; thereby providing an illustration of how autonomous systems can be understood as having layers of nested and self-sustaining boundaries. This allows us to show that: (i) any living system is a Markov blanketed system and (ii) the boundaries of such systems need not be co-extensive with the biophysical boundaries of a living organism. In other words, autonomous systems are hierarchically composed of Markov blankets of Markov blankets-all the way down to individual cells, all the way up to you and me, and all the way out to include elements of the local environment.
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ISSN:1742-5662
1742-5662
DOI:10.1098/rsif.2017.0792