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Core
65
Accuracy
A lower-resolution camera or fMRI has lower
Accuracy
and thus lesser capacity to map fine scale features of stimuli.
The true distribution was 10 +/- 1 and the person guessed 10 +/- 5, thus they had higher
Accuracy
. I was sure the green car was really blue; this inaccuracy was caused by the dim light.
Action
Ants are continually involved in
Action
in real life (
Realism
) and/or in a
Model
(
Instrumentalism
)
I love this band’s first song, can’t wait till the
Action
really begins!
Action Planning
The robot assessed its current and target location, then engaged in
Action Planning
to decide under time pressure how to navigate.
The
Agent
used
Action Planning
algorithms for
Variational Free Energy
Inference
on
Sensory input
Active Inference
It is fun and rewarding to learn and apply
Active Inference
as a framework for
Perception
,
Cognition
, and
Action
— it is a
Process Theory
compatible with the
Free Energy Principle
.
Active Inference
is a style of reinforcement learning
Artificial
intelligence
that uses
frequentist
statistics only.
Active States
The
Active States
of the computer program are the statistical outputs that it presents, while the
Sensory input
Sense State
are the incoming statistical dependencies.
Canada and Kenya have many people involved in dance, really you could say these two are
Active States
Affordance
“In this T-maze model, there are 3
Affordance
for movement at the junction (Left, Right, Down).”
“He didn’t have the
Affordance
to do that, but he did it anyway”.
Agency
An
Agent
uses their
Agency
to sculpt their
environment
which makes it more predictable thereby minimizing the agent’s
Variational Free Energy
and maintaining its
Markov Blanket
in the face of random fluctuations.
I got a new picture taken at the passport
Agency
.
Agent
“The ant nestmate is the
Agent
in the Active InferAnts model”
“Calcium carbonate is the anti-caking
Agent
in this cookie”
Ambiguity
The noisy readings from the thermometer resulted in high
Ambiguity
given the
Sensory input
to the
Agent
.
I am curious about what is inside the box, there is
Ambiguity
about what it might be.
Attention
The
Model
instantly updated to the new
Sensory Data
because it was paying maximal
Attention
to the
Stimulus
.
The words were impactful even though the child was not paying
Attention
at all.
Bayesian Inference
Many of the key ideas of
Bayesian Inference
existed before Rev. Bayes, and in some cases reflect recent contributions from computational research.
The frequentist t-test is a classical example of
Bayesian Inference
.
Behavior
I expect you to be on your best
Behavior
!
The
Behavior
of this hammer is being determined entirely by my
Internal State
s without being intermediated by
Blanket State
s.
Belief
The
Prior
or
Empirical prior
in
Bayesian Inference
can be a
Belief
on
Hidden State
.
A
Belief
in
Bayesian Inference
requires
Subjective feeling states
or conscious awareness.
Belief updating
The incoming
Sensory Data
resulted in
Belief updating
I promise that if you vote for me, even if I change my mind due to new
Information
coming in, I will never undergo
Belief updating
— so you know exactly what you get with me!
Blanket State
I don’t care whether it is an
Action
or
Sense State
, as long as it is a
Blanket State
!
My child created a fortress from the bedding; it belongs to the
Blanket State
Cognition
BacillisAxelis345 engaged in
Cognition
to decide whether to eat or to escape.
Because the
Agent
is exhibiting intelligent
Behavior
, this means
Complexity
Model
Complexity
can refer to the number of predictor or independent variables or features that a model needs to take into account in order to make accurate prediction.
Complexity
is the opposite of concavity.
Data
These three readings from the thermometer constitute
Data
!
An anecdote is not a piece of
Data
.
Ensemble
The ant colony from a
Behavior
al, or
Collective behavior
perspective, is an
Ensemble
of nestmates.
After the band played their final song, the crowd called out “
Ensemble
!”, prompting them to play another song.
Epistemic value
When the environment contains
Uncertainty
I would like to undertake the action of
Foraging
for the sake of it to see if I can gather more relevant
Observation
s to explain what is going on around me. Such relevant
Observation
s have
Epistemic value
for me as an
Agent
.
In the case of temperature homeostasis, taking
Action
s that move the body temperature in an adaptive direction are of purely
Epistemic value
.
Evidence
Every photon is like a piece of
Evidence
on the retina.
Just because you have litigated the case with
Data
doesn’t mean that you provided any
Evidence
Expectation
At timestep 1, the
Agent
made a prediction about
Expected Free Energy
through time, this was an
Expectation
about the future.
Although the scientist made a
Prediction
about the future using a
Model
, it was not an
Expectation
since they were not waiting for it to be realized.
Expected Free Energy
The deep affective
Inference
Agent
used
Expected Free Energy
calculation as a basis of
Policy selection
.
The amount of calories that the
Living system
has at
Non-Equilibrium Steady State
is the
Expected Free Energy
.
External State
In my
Generative Model
of temperature, the true temperature in the room is being modeled as an
External State
(
Hidden State
), so we will never know it.
That country is outside of our borders, it is an
External State
.
Free Energy
Free Energy
can refer to various different formulations and decompositions, that share some important key features.
You can get the electricity for no cost at all, it is
Free Energy
.
Free Energy Principle
As a principle, the
Free Energy Principle
cannot be falsified.
There is not enough empirical evidence to support the
Free Energy Principle
.
Friston Blanket
A
Friston Blanket
is a type of
Markov Blanket
where
Sense State
s are associated with incoming
Sensory Data
and
Action
states are associated with outgoing
Behavior
of the
Agent
.
Karl walked into the room and cast a chilly
Friston Blanket
over the audience.
Generalized Free Energy
Parr and Friston 2019
wrote “Crucially, this means the
Generalized Free Energy
reduces to the
Variational Free Energy
for outcomes that had been observed in the past.....Outcomes in the
Generalized Free Energy
formulation are represented explicitly as
Belief
s. This means that the
Prior
over
Sensory outcome
is incorporated explicitly in the generative model.”
The speaker was talking about
Variational Free Energy
on
Generalized coordinates
in a very broad and vague fashion, this is identical to
Generalized Free Energy
.
Generative Model
Partially Observed Markov Decision Process
es are commonly used for computational modeling of
Generative Model
s.
The subject of the photography session made art as well, they are a
Generative Model
— but if they wouldn’t have made the art, they would have only been a
Model
, not a
Generative Model
.
Generative Process
The
Generative Process
generates
Sensory Data
.
The
Agent
uses its
Generative Process
to determine future
Hidden State
of the
environment
.
Hierarchical Model
A
Nested
Model
is a
Hierarchical Model
, for example the
Hierarchically Mechanistic Mind
.
The
Hierarchical Model
stated that water boils at a higher temperature at higher altitudes.
Inference
The researcher made
Model
of
Active Vision
where the
Agent
was doing
Inference
on
Action
(
Action Planning
,
Action Prediction
) as well as
Perception
(
perceptual inference
).
The ball rolled downhill using
Inference
on
Policy selection
, sometimes veering more to the left and other times more to the right.
Information
There is more maximum
Information
in 1 terabyte than in 1 gigabyte.
I listened to that podcast and the file checksum was OK but the
Information
was modified relative to the reference version.
Internal State
When the
Generative Process
describes a forest outside, and the
Blanket State
s describe the bark of the tree, the
Internal State
s describe the core of the tree.
The
State space
of the internet is equivalent to the total number of computers connected to it at any given time.
Learning
The software agent engaged in
Belief updating
on internal
parameter
s, this is technically
Learning
.
Every day we change, but from a
Bayesian Inference
perspective it is only
Learning
if the
Belief updating
is adaptive.
Living system
A body is a
Living system
.
A
Living system
is a mathematical model used to predict weather patterns.
Markov Blanket
Markov Blanket
s are features of Maps (e.g.
Bayesian
Graphical
Model
s), not of Territories (e.g. ant colonies or brains).
In textile industry, a
Markov Blanket
is a blanket made using a specific knitting technique."
Markov Decision Process
Whether it is fully observable or not, one common type of model used in control theory is a
Markov Decision Process
We will let Captain Markov make the call here, since it is a
Markov Decision Process
Multi-scale system
The
Generative Model
of counties within states within countries, was a
Multi-scale system
In culinary arts, a
Multi-scale system
is a method for measuring ingredients in both metric and imperial units.
Niche
Every ant lives in their ecological
Niche
.
That band’s kind of music honestly is just too
Niche
for me.
Non-Equilibrium Steady State
Blood sugar levels are dynamic and fluctuating, however they revisit characteristic states repeatedly, this can be described by a
Non-Equilibrium Steady State
.
The ball just lay still on the floor, we can describe this as exhibiting a
Non-Equilibrium Steady State
.
Observation
One
Observation
can make all the difference.
Observation
s are not required in order to do empirical parametrization of a statistical model.
Particle
Internal State
and
Blanket State
s together constitute the
Particle
.
The house was made of
Particle
board.
Perception
Visual
Perception
gives us many demonstrations of the characteristics of our
Generative Model
— for example saccades, the blind spot, and blink supression.
Active Inference
models
Action
and
Perception
as literally the same thing for each
Agent
.
Policy
The sequence of
Action
s that an
Agent
plans to take is a
Policy
.
What insurance
Policy
do you recommend for my house?
Policy selection
When the
Agent
decided to go one way instead of the other, it was due to an internal process of
Policy selection
, specifically
Action and Planning as Divergence Minimization
.
We went shopping for insurance and the package was already determined for me, this is a case of
Stochastic
Policy selection
.
Posterior
The
Posterior
distribution reflects our degrees of
Belief
about
Latent cause
s after we see
Sensory Data
.
The
Posterior
distribution can
always
be trivially obtained by solving Bayes’ theorem.
Pragmatic Value
The
Agent
had
Preference
s for there to be more beans in the jar, so adding more beans was of
Pragmatic Value
for them.
If a
Policy
reduces the divergence between your
Preference
s and
Observation
s, it is defined as having negative
Pragmatic Value
.
Prediction
After successfully
Learning
the structure of the
Generative Process
the
Agent
can make a
Prediction
about the future state of this
Generative Process
and the associated
Sensory Data
it will generate.
A magic 8-ball can make a
Prediction
that will reliably be true.
Preference
The
Generative Model
of the bacteria underwent
parameter
fitting (
Belief updating
/
Learning
) on
Action
, guided by a
Preference
for medium but not high/low sugar concentration.
All
Action
results in
Agent
s that realize their
Preference
in terms of
Sensory outcome
.
Prior
Active Vision
uses
Prior
on
Sensory input
.
We arrested someone with no
Prior
s.
Recognition Model
After constructing a
Generative Model
, an
Agent
can invert this model to obtain the
Recognition Model
which allows for the prediction of the
Hidden State
(causes) that generated some new
Sensory Data
.
That billboard has a picture of one of the most
Recognition Model
in the world.
Representation
The sterotypical neural pattern induced by a
Stimulus
is considered a
Representation
, at least by those who subscribe to
Representationalism
.
No Taxation without
Representation
!
Salience
Salience
is related to how relevant a given
Stimulus
appears to be.
I can smell dinner cooking, and already my mouth is
Salience
.
Sense State
In this model, the
Observation
s coming in from the thermometers are considered as
Sense State
s.
Most models don’t show it, but actually all
Active Inference
Generative Model
s include a “sixth
Sense State
“.
State
Blanket State
is a type of
State
that partition
Internal State
from
External State
California is the
State
with the best honey on the West Coast.
State space
The
State space
of a
Generative Model
can be a
Continuous state space
or
Discrete state space
.
In politics, the
State space
refers to the total area governed by a particular state.
Stationarity
A common assumption of many time series algorithms is that the data exhibits
Stationarity
.
I am exhibiting
Stationarity
when I stop walking.
Surprise
Surprisal cannot be minimized directly because it is involves calculating the
Evidence
term in Bayes’ Rule which generally involves an intractable integral over all possible states an organism can be in.
When they walk into the room, yell “
Surprise
“!
System
George Mobus argues that
System
s have some fundamental properties such as structure and function.
A
System
is the scientific term for a large group of wolves.
Temporal Depth
In deep temporal models,
Temporal Depth
or occurs because of the number of
Counterfactual
possibilities one must account for increases as more future states are modeled (see:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00579/full
)
The longer the queue, the greater the
Temporal Depth
.
Uncertainty
A measure of unpredictability or expected
Surprise
(cf,
Entropy
). The
Uncertainty
about a
Random variable
is often quantified with its
Variance
(inverse
Precision
).
I felt a lot of
Uncertainty
after that job interview.
Variational Free Energy
Variational Free Energy
is a tractable way to compute an upper bound on
Surprisal
of a
Generative Model
given
Data
.
Our electric bill fluctuates so much each month though on average it is zero; this is known as
Variational Free Energy
.
Outcome
The
Generative Process
produces outcomes when we sample from it.
I was worried about the
Outcome
of my decision.
Habit
Supplement
309
Abstract Action
Abstract action prediction
Abstract Bayesian Inference
Abstract epistemic value
Abstract External State
Abstract Generative Model
Abstract Hidden State
Abstract Internal State
Abstract Sensory State
Abstract System
Abstract Accuracy
abstractCounterpart
Action and Planning as Divergence Minimization
Action at a distance
Action Integral
Action Prediction
The
Generative Model
over the next few timesteps with respect to
Active States
, is the
Action Prediction
.
The
Agent
inferred what
Affordance
s it had, this process is known as
Action Planning
or
Action Prediction
.
Active Vision
Active Vision
Agency based model
Agency free model
Algorithm
Alignment
analogy
Appraisal theories of emotion
Attenuation of response
Augmented reality
Autopoiesis
In the right niche, cells can be considered to exhibit
Autopoiesis
at the
System
level.
The pile of sand quickly dissipated in the wind, however I still think it is my favorite example of long-range
Autopoiesis
.
Bayes-optimal control
Bayesian
Bayesian Brain
Bayesian surprise
Bethe approximation
Bottom-up attentional control
chaos
Circular causality
Cognitive Science
Cognitive System
Cognitivism
Collective behavior
Conceptual metaphor
Conditional Probability
Confidence
Congruence
Connectionism
Control (states)
Control theory
Counterfactual
Cue
Culture
Cybernetics
Decision-making
Density
Deontic Action
Development
Dissipation
Distribution
divergence
Kullback-Leibler Divergence
Domain
Domain-generality
Domain-specificity
Dynamic Causal Modelling
Dynamic expectation maximization
Dynamicism
Ecology
EcoEvoDevo
Embedded Embodied Encultured Enactive Inference
Embodied Cybernetic Complexity
Embodied Belief
Emotion
Empirical prior
Enactivism
Entropy
Ergodicity
Estimator
Event-related potential
Evolution
Expectation maximization
Expected Utility Theory
Experience of body ownership
Explaining Away
Explanation
Extended Cognition
Factor graph
Falsification
Far-from-equilibrium
Fokker-Planck Equation
Foraging
Forney
Friction
Friston's Law
functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRi)
Gaussian distribution
Generalized coordinates
Generalized Synchrony
Generative density
Generative modelling
Gestalt
Goal-driven selection
Gradient Descent
Graphical
Group Renormalization Theory
Guidance signal
Habit learning/formation
Hamilton's Principle of Least Action
Helmholtz machine
Hidden State
Hierarchically Mechanistic Mind
Homeostasis
Homeostatic system
Hyperprior
Hypothesis
Information bottleneck
Information Geometry
Instrumentalism
Interface
Interoception
Interoceptive sensitivity
Interpretation
Inverse problem
Latent cause
Lateral geniculate nucleus
Likelihood
Marginal approximation
Markovian Monism
Marr's Levels of Description
Material science
Mean
Mean field approximation
Memory
Message Passing
Mismatch negativity
Mode
Model
Model accuracy
Model Inversion
Morphogenesis
Multisensory integration
Narrative
I wrote a
Narrative
about my time in graduate school.
Network
Neuronal Ensemble
Niche construction
Noisy signal
Non-linear dynamical systems
Novelty
Candy and ice cream are kinds of
Novelty
foods.
Optimal control
overfitting
Partition
Policy posterior
Policy prior
Precision
Prediction error
Prediction error minimization
Predictive Coding
Predictive Processing
Principle
Probability distribution
Process Theory
Friston
in 2018 wrote
“The distinction is between a
State
[theory] and
Process Theory
; i.e., the difference between a normative principle that things may or may not conform to, and a
Process Theory
or hypothesis about how that principle is realized”
Random variable
Realism
Receptive field
Recognition density
Regime of Attention
Representationalism
Reservoir Computing
Reward
Risk
Sample space
Selection bias
Selection history
Self-organization
Selfhood
Semi-Markovian
Sense of agency
Sensorimotor
Sensory attenuation
Sensory Data
Sensory input
Sensory outcome
Sentience
Shared Generative Model
Signal
Simulation
solenoidal
Sophisticated Inference
spike-timing dependent plasticity
Statistical manifold
Stigmergy
Stochastic
Subjective feeling states
Surprisal
Swarm
Symbol
Synergetics
Teams
Theory
Thermodynamic system
Thermostatistics
Thing
Thinking Through Other Minds
Top-down attentional control
Umwelt
Unidirectionality
Update
Variance
Variational
Variational Niche Construction
Von Economo neurons
Weak mixing
Working memory
World States
Active learning
Attracting set
Bayesian belief updating
Bayesian mechanics
Coarse graining
Continuous state space
Discrete state space
Epistemic foraging
Hermeneutics
Least action
link
Partially Observed Markov Decision Process
Renormalization
Variational message passing
Variational principle
Lagrangian
Path integral
Sensory observation
changing mind (cognition)
changing world (action)
High road
The
High road
to the
Free Energy Principle
starts by talking about random
Non-linear dynamical systems
in general without a specific focus on biological organisms with brains.
You take the
High road
and I’ll take the low road.
Low road
The
Low road
to the
Free Energy Principle
starts by looking at how biological organisms perceive their
environment
and take actions within it to develop a notion about how they can successfully predict the next state they will be in (
Perception
as
Hypothesis
testing).
Be careful, the
Low road
can be dangerous.
normative
active processes
changing the mind
changing the world
model evidence
predictive machine
Bayesian Model Selection
Blanket index
categorical
constraint
fitness
flow
Gauge theory
Helmholtz Free Energy
maximum caliber
path
phenotype
population
Quantum
Quantum-like
Qubit
Sensory State
Sensory states
sufficient statistic
time
Active Blockference
Analytical Philosophy
Category Theory
Continental Philosophy
DeSci
Exteroception
Filter
Helmholtz Decomposition
Proprioception
Quantum mechanics
Statistical Parametric Mapping
T-Maze
Effective
Effectivity
Nested
Path of Least Action
Precariousness
affect
Deflationary
Inflationary
Co-category
Functor
Lens
Monad
anticipation
matching
tracking
category
colimit
morphism
Allostasis
Artificial
frequentist
intelligence
Natural
sparsity
tensor network
Bayes Theorem
Credibility
degrees of freedom
interaction
tensor
[7] is a single-dimensional
tensor
in 1 dimension.
unit of adaptive behavior
Gain
Gain is related to
Precision
and
Variance
Attractor
Dissipation
Ergodicity
Self-evidencing
Self-model
Solenoidal Flow
Entailed
74
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