Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-149
Full metadata record
DC FieldValueLanguage
dc.contributor.authorHohwy, Jakob
dc.date.accessioned2016-11-29T09:45:58Z
dc.date.available2016-11-29T10:45:58Z
dc.date.issued2015
dc.identifier.urihttps://openscience.ub.uni-mainz.de/handle/20.500.12030/151-
dc.description.abstractThe free energy principle says that organisms act to maintain themselves in their expected states and that they achieve this by minimizing their free energy. This corresponds to the brain’s job of minimizing prediction error, selective sampling of sensory data, optimizing expected precisions, and minimizing complexity of internal models. These in turn map on to perception, action, attention, and model selection, respectively. This means that the free energy principle is extremely ambitious: it aims to explain everything about the mind. The principle is bound to be controversial, and hostage to empirical fortune. It may also be thought preposterous: the theory may seem either too ambitious or too trivial to be taken seriously. This chapter introduces the ideas behind the free energy principle and then proceeds to discuss the charge of preposterousness from the perspective of philosophy of science. It is shown that whereas it is ambitious, controversial and needs further evidence in its favour, it is not preposterous. The argument proceeds by appeal to: (i) the notion of inference to the best explanation, (ii) a comparison with the theory of evolution, (iii) the notion of explaining-away, and (iv) a “biofunctionalist” account of Bayesian processing. The heuristic starting point is the simple idea that the brain is just one among our bodily organs, each of which has an overall function. The outcome is not just a defence of the free energy principle against various challenges but also a deeper anchoring of this theory in philosophy of science, yielding an appreciation of the kind of explanation of the mind it offers.en_GB
dc.language.isoeng
dc.rightsInCopyrightde_DE
dc.rights.urihttps://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
dc.subject.ddc100 Philosophiede_DE
dc.subject.ddc100 Philosophyen_GB
dc.titleThe neural organ explains the minden_GB
dc.typeBuchbeitragde_DE
dc.identifier.urnurn:nbn:de:hebis:77-publ-552994
dc.identifier.doihttp://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-149-
jgu.type.dinitypebookPart
jgu.type.versionPublished versionen_GB
jgu.type.resourceText
jgu.organisation.departmentFB 05 Philosophie und Philologie-
jgu.organisation.number7920-
jgu.organisation.nameJohannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz-
jgu.rights.accessrightsopenAccess-
jgu.book.titleOpen MIND
jgu.book.editorMetzinger, Thomas
jgu.pages.alternativeKap. 19(T)
jgu.publisher.year2015
jgu.publisher.nameMIND Group
jgu.publisher.placeFrankfurt am Main
jgu.publisher.urihttp://dx.doi.org/10.15502/9783958570016
jgu.organisation.placeMainz-
jgu.subject.ddccode100
opus.date.accessioned2016-11-29T09:45:58Z
opus.date.modified2016-11-29T09:46:09Z
opus.date.available2016-11-29T10:45:58
opus.subject.dfgcode00-000
opus.organisation.stringFB 05: Philosophie und Philologie: Philosophisches Seminarde_DE
opus.identifier.opusid55299
opus.relation.ispartofcollectionOpen Mindde_DE
opus.institute.number0508
opus.metadataonlyfalse
opus.type.contenttypeKeinede_DE
opus.type.contenttypeNoneen_GB
jgu.publisher.doi10.15502/9783958570016
jgu.organisation.rorhttps://ror.org/023b0x485
Appears in collections:JGU-Publikationen

Files in This Item:
  File Description SizeFormat
Thumbnail
55299.pdf254.58 kBAdobe PDFView/Open