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


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Feb 14 2025 77 mins   201 1 0

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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