Wiese, W;
Friston, KJ;
(2021)
Examining the Continuity between Life and Mind: Is There a Continuity between Autopoietic Intentionality and Representationality?
Philosophies
, 6
(1)
, Article 18. 10.3390/philosophies6010018.
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Abstract
A weak version of the life-mind continuity thesis entails that every living system also has a basic mind (with a non-representational form of intentionality). The strong version entails that the same concepts that are sufficient to explain basic minds (with non-representational states) are also central to understanding non-basic minds (with representational states). We argue that recent work on the free energy principle supports the following claims with respect to the life-mind continuity thesis: (i) there is a strong continuity between life and mind; (ii) all living systems can be described as if they had representational states; (iii) the ’as-if representationality’ entailed by the free energy principle is central to understanding both basic forms of intentionality and intentionality in non-basic minds. In addition to this, we argue that the free energy principle also renders realism about computation and representation compatible with a strong life-mind continuity thesis (although the free energy principle does not entail computational and representational realism). In particular, we show how representationality proper can be grounded in ’as-if representationality’.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Examining the Continuity between Life and Mind: Is There a Continuity between Autopoietic Intentionality and Representationality? |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3390/philosophies6010018 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies6010018 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited |
| Keywords: | Active inference; autopoiesis; free energy principle; intentionality; life-mind continuity; predictive processing; mental representation |
| 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/10124604 |
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