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Life, mind, agency: Why Markov blankets fail the test of evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 September 2022

Walter Veit Open the ORCID record for Walter Veit [Opens in a new window]  and
Heather Browning Open the ORCID record for Heather Browning [Opens in a new window]
Walter Veit
Affiliation:
School of History and Philosophy of Science, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australiawrwveit@gmail.comhttps://walterveit.com/
Heather Browning
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science, Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, London WC2A 2AE, UKDrHeatherBrowning@gmail.comhttps://www.heatherbrowning.net/
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Abstract

There has been much criticism of the idea that Friston's free-energy principle can unite the life and mind sciences. Here, we argue that perhaps the greatest problem for the totalizing ambitions of its proponents is a failure to recognize the importance of evolutionary dynamics and to provide a convincing adaptive story relating free-energy minimization to organismal fitness.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 45 , 2022 , e214
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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