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A Drive to Survive: The Free Energy Principle and the Meaning of Life
How the purposive behavior of living systems outstrips the constraints of the free energy principle.
Since 2005, Karl Friston’s proposal that the principle of free energy minimization underpins the purposive behavior of living agents has evolved throughout thousands of publications. This principle’s central move is to formalize the drive for self-preservation in terms of a single probabilistic to survive, a living system must consistently exhibit the same “most likely” pattern of activity over time. Despite the simplicity of this central claim, the free energy principle’s complexity and rate of development have previously made it difficult to identify and evaluate. In A Drive to Survive, Kathryn Nave offers an extended critical analysis of the strengths and limitations of Friston’s proposal.
Nave shows that the free energy principle’s capacity to account for the biological origins of purposiveness is undermined by its applicability to any stable inanimate system. As this triviality has become apparent, so advocates have begun to reframe the free energy principle as a means to eliminate, rather than explain, the notion of distinctively biological purposiveness. This, Nave proposes, gets things the wrong way around. The triviality of free energy minimization does not prove that there is no difference in kind between living agents and ordinary machines, but rather reflects that the framework cannot capture the intrinsic instability and unpredictability that distinguish the former.
Since 2005, Karl Friston’s proposal that the principle of free energy minimization underpins the purposive behavior of living agents has evolved throughout thousands of publications. This principle’s central move is to formalize the drive for self-preservation in terms of a single probabilistic to survive, a living system must consistently exhibit the same “most likely” pattern of activity over time. Despite the simplicity of this central claim, the free energy principle’s complexity and rate of development have previously made it difficult to identify and evaluate. In A Drive to Survive, Kathryn Nave offers an extended critical analysis of the strengths and limitations of Friston’s proposal.
Nave shows that the free energy principle’s capacity to account for the biological origins of purposiveness is undermined by its applicability to any stable inanimate system. As this triviality has become apparent, so advocates have begun to reframe the free energy principle as a means to eliminate, rather than explain, the notion of distinctively biological purposiveness. This, Nave proposes, gets things the wrong way around. The triviality of free energy minimization does not prove that there is no difference in kind between living agents and ordinary machines, but rather reflects that the framework cannot capture the intrinsic instability and unpredictability that distinguish the former.
- GenresPhilosophy
318 pages, Paperback
Published February 4, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 22, 2024
"Drive to Survive" by Kathryn Nave is both a meticulous review and a sharp critique of the Free Energy Principle (FEP) as the definitive framework for life. Nave carefully constructs an intricate argument, showing how the FEP ultimately fails to fully account for the dynamic, precarious nature of living systems. The author slowly but accurately sews up a web in which FEP cannot practically escape to survive. Nave concludes by advocating for a bioenactive perspective centered on constraint closure as a more comprehensive approach, leaving the FEP as a model suited for certain aspects of life, such as homeostasis.
The book begins by introducing bioenactivism, predictive processing, and the FEP, situating these frameworks within their historical and conceptual contexts. Nave explores the ambition of the FEP to serve as a "universal principle" for life, connecting it to Ashby's cybernetics and non-teleological, homeostatic views from Maturana and others. However, she critiques the FEP for reducing autonomy and self-organization to generalized homeostasis, overlooking the inherent instability, dynamic self-maintenance, and precariousness of living organisms. Furthermore, she highlights the intuitive issue that some non-living systems also appear to minimize free energy, undermining the FEP's claim as a unique framework for life.
Nave proposes constraint closure as a superior alternative, drawing on thinkers like Kauffman, Mossio, and Moreno. This framework preserves teleological explanations, which were abandoned in earlier Ashbian traditions, while addressing the dynamic and processual nature of life. It highlights the reciprocal relationship between an organism's constraints and its self-maintaining processes, offering a richer understanding of biological autonomy.
Despite its specificity, "Drive to Survive" is remarkably accessible. Readers with minimal background in either the FEP or bioenactivism can still appreciate Nave’s eloquent prose and rigorous argumentation. A must-read for those interested in the philosophy of life and cognition.
5/5
The book begins by introducing bioenactivism, predictive processing, and the FEP, situating these frameworks within their historical and conceptual contexts. Nave explores the ambition of the FEP to serve as a "universal principle" for life, connecting it to Ashby's cybernetics and non-teleological, homeostatic views from Maturana and others. However, she critiques the FEP for reducing autonomy and self-organization to generalized homeostasis, overlooking the inherent instability, dynamic self-maintenance, and precariousness of living organisms. Furthermore, she highlights the intuitive issue that some non-living systems also appear to minimize free energy, undermining the FEP's claim as a unique framework for life.
Nave proposes constraint closure as a superior alternative, drawing on thinkers like Kauffman, Mossio, and Moreno. This framework preserves teleological explanations, which were abandoned in earlier Ashbian traditions, while addressing the dynamic and processual nature of life. It highlights the reciprocal relationship between an organism's constraints and its self-maintaining processes, offering a richer understanding of biological autonomy.
Despite its specificity, "Drive to Survive" is remarkably accessible. Readers with minimal background in either the FEP or bioenactivism can still appreciate Nave’s eloquent prose and rigorous argumentation. A must-read for those interested in the philosophy of life and cognition.
5/5
April 18, 2025
banger critical engagement with the FEP and associated frameworks, but the 'transcendentally-phenomenologically motivated' (?) enactivism, juarrero's constraints, that organisms = 'reasons', normativity, causa sui are unitelligible nonsense and the fearmongering against mechanism is just bizarre to me & not my vibe. didn't find the way these were presented at all convincing to take them seriously.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews