1. EachPod

How Free Energy Constructs Our Reality | Michael Levin and Karl Friston

Author
Theories of Everything
Published
Fri 14 Feb 2025
Episode Link
None

Curt Jaimungal is joined by Michael Levin and Karl Friston. This conversation incorporates insights from physics and information theory, particularly regarding self-organization and the significance of entropy and free energy.

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Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
3:43 The Free Energy Principle Explained
5:41 Creativity and Adaptive Utilization
11:56 In-Painting vs. Out-Painting
15:33 The Unreliable Medium of Biology
20:05 Aging: Noise or Psychological?
25:25 The Nature of Selfhood
45:10 Distinctions in Organic and Psychological Disease
48:54 Goal-Directed Systems and Aging
52:32 The Dynamics of Life and Death
55:49 Continuous Self in a Changing Form
1:01:35 The Constructive Nature of Science
1:08:02 Inferring Actions and Counterfactuals
1:11:40 Closing Thoughts and Future Conversations

Links Mentioned:
- Michael’s website: https://thoughtforms.life/
- Karl’s publications: https://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~karl/
- Michael’s previous appearance on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aLhkm6QUgA
- Karl’s previous appearance on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk4NZorRjCo
- Michael on Anthrobots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG6GIzNM0aM
- Michael’s paper on stress sharing as cognitive glue for collective intelligences: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006291X2400932X?ref=pdf_download&fr=RR-2&rr=911840d57c51eace
- Karl and Michael with Chris Fields on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6eJ44Jq_pw
- Karl Friston on the ‘Free Energy Principle’ on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v7LBABwZKA
- Michael’s recent paper with Chris Fields: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1571064525000089?dgcid=coauthor
- Top-down models in biology (paper): https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10.1098/rsif.2016.0555
Geoffrey Hinton on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_DUft-BdIE

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#science #podcast #reality #mind #consciousness #theoreticalphysics
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