Dr. MAXWELL RAMSTEAD - The Physics of Survival
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Join us for a fascinating discussion of the free energy principle with Dr. Maxwell Ramsted, a leading thinker exploring the intersection of math, physics, and philosophy and Director of Research at VERSES. The FEP was proposed by renowned neuroscientist Karl Friston, this principle offers a unifying theory explaining how systems maintain order and their identity.

The free energy principle inverts traditional survival logic. Rather than asking what behaviors promote survival, it queries - given things exist, what must they do? The answer: minimizing free energy, or "surprise." Systems persist by constantly ensuring their internal states match anticipated states based on a model of the world. Failure to minimize surprise leads to chaos as systems dissolve into disorder.

Thus, the free energy principle elucidates why lifeforms relentlessly model and predict their surroundings. It is an existential imperative counterbalancing entropy. Essentially, this principle describes the mind's pursuit of harmony between expectations and reality. Its relevance spans from cells to societies, underlying order wherever longevity is found.

Our discussion explores the technical details and philosophical implications of this paradigm-shifting theory. How does it further our understanding of cognition and intelligence? What insights does it offer about the fundamental patterns and properties of existence? Can it precipitate breakthroughs in disciplines like neuroscience and artificial intelligence?

Dr. Ramstead completed his Ph.D. at McGill University in Montreal, Canada in 2019, with frequent research visits to UCL in London, under the supervision of the world’s most cited neuroscientist, Professor Karl Friston (UCL).

YT version: https://youtu.be/8qb28P7ksyE

https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=ILpGOMkAAAAJ&hl=frhttps://spatialwebfoundation.org/team/maxwell-ramstead/https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxwell-ramstead-43a1991b7/https://twitter.com/mjdramstead

VERSES AI: https://www.verses.ai/

Intro: Tim Scarfe (Ph.D) Interviewer: Keith Duggar (Ph.D MIT)

TOC: 0:00:00 - Tim Intro 0:08:10 - Intro and philosophy 0:14:26 - Intro to Maxwell 0:18:00 - FEP 0:29:08 - Markov Blankets 0:51:15 - Verses AI / Applications of FEP 1:05:55 - Potential issues with deploying FEP 1:10:50 - Shared knowledge graphs 1:14:29 - XRisk / Ethics 1:24:57 - Strength of Verses 1:28:30 - Misconceptions about FEP, Physics vs philosophy/criticism 1:44:41 - Emergence / consciousness

References: Principia Mathematica https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30567249049

Andy Clark's paper "Whatever Next? Predictive Brains, Situated Agents, and the Future of Cognitive Science" (Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2013) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23663408/

"Math Does Not Represent" by Erik Curiel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA_T20HAzyY

A free energy principle for generic quantum systems (Chris Fields et al) https://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.15242.pdf

Designing explainable artificial intelligence with active inference https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.04025

Am I Self-Conscious? (Friston) https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00579/full

The Meta-Problem of Consciousness https://philarchive.org/archive/CHATMO-32v1

The Map-Territory Fallacy Fallacy https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.06924

A Technical Critique of Some Parts of the Free Energy Principle - Martin Biehl et al https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.06408

WEAK MARKOV BLANKETS IN HIGH-DIMENSIONAL, SPARSELY-COUPLED RANDOM DYNAMICAL SYSTEMS - DALTON A R SAKTHIVADIVEL https://arxiv.org/pdf/2207.07620.pdf