Constant, A;
Ramstead, MJD;
Veissière, SPL;
Campbell, JO;
Friston, KJ;
(2018)
A variational approach to niche construction.
Journal of the Royal Society Interface
, 15
(141)
, Article 20170685. 10.1098/rsif.2017.0685.
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Abstract
In evolutionary biology, niche construction is sometimes described as a genuine evolutionary process whereby organisms, through their activities and regulatory mechanisms, modify their environment such as to steer their own evolutionary trajectory, and that of other species. There is ongoing debate, however, on the extent to which niche construction ought to be considered a bona fide evolutionary force, on a par with natural selection. Recent formulations of the variational free-energy principle as applied to the life sciences describe the properties of living systems, and their selection in evolution, in terms of variational inference.We argue that niche construction can be described using a variational approach.We propose newarguments to support the niche construction perspective, and to extend the variational approach to niche construction to current perspectives in various scientific fields.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | A variational approach to niche construction |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1098/rsif.2017.0685 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2017.0685 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
| Keywords: | evolutionary biology, niche construction theory, ecological inheritance, variational free-energy principle, active inference, situated learning |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Imaging Neuroscience |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10048140 |
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