Michael Kirchhoff

This paper aims to provide a theoretical framework for explaining the subjective character of pain experience in terms of what we will call 'embodied predictive processing'. The predictive processing (PP) theory is a family of views that take perception, action, emotion and cognition to all work together in the service of prediction error minimisation. In this paper we propose an embodied perspective on the PP theory we call the 'embodied predictive processing (EPP) theory. The EPP theory proposes to explain pain in terms of processes distributed across the whole body. The prediction error minimising system that generates pain experience comprises the immune system, the endocrine system, and the autonomic system in continuous causal interaction with pathways spread across the whole neural axis. We will argue that these systems function in a coordinated and coherent manner as a single complex adaptive system to maintain homeostasis. This system, which we refer to as the neural-endocrine-immune (NEI) system, maintains homeostasis through the process of prediction error minimisation. We go on to propose a view of the NEI ensemble as a multiscale nesting of Markov blankets that integrates the smallest scale of the cell to the largest scale of the embodied person in pain. We set out to show how the EPP theory can make sense of how pain experience could be neurobiologically constituted. We take it to be a constraint on the adequacy of a scientific explanation of subjectivity of pain experience that it makes it intelligible how pain can simultaneously be a local sensing of the body, and, at the same time, a more global, all-encompassing attitude towards the environment. Our aim in what follows is to show how the EPP theory can meet this constraint.

Highlight • Computational treatment of biological self-organisation.• Biological self-organisation requires emergence of boundaries, namely Markov blankets.• Hierarchical self-organisation entails emergence of Markov blankets at multiple scale.

The aim of this paper is to clarify how best to interpret some of the central constructs that underwrite the free-energy principle (FEP)-and its corollary, active inference-in theoretical neuroscience and biology: namely, the role that generative models and variational densities play in this theory. We argue that these constructs have been systematically misrepresented in the literature; because of the conflation between the FEP and active inference, on the one hand, and distinct (albeit closely related) Bayesian formulations, centred on the brain-variously known as predictive processing, predictive coding, or the prediction error minimisation framework. More specifically, we examine two contrasting interpretations of these models: a structural representationalist interpretation and an enactive interpretation. We argue that the structural representationalist interpretation of generative and recognition models does not do justice to the role that these constructs play in active infer...

We present a multiscale integrationist interpretation on the boundaries of cognitive systems, using the Markov blanket formalism of the variational free energy principle (FEP). This interpretation is intended as a corrective for the philosophical debate over internalist and externalist interpretations of cognitive boundaries; we stake out a compromise position. We first survey key principles of new radical (extended, enactive, embodied) views of cognition. We then describe an internalist interpretation premised on the Markov blanket formalism. Having reviewed these accounts, we develop our positive multiscale account. We argue that the statistical seclusion of internal from external states of the system – entailed by the existence of a Markov boundary – can coexist happily with the multiscale integration of the system through its dynamics. Our approach does not privilege any given boundary (whether it be that of the brain, body, or world), nor does it argue that all boundaries are e...

The free energy principle (FEP) portends to provide a unifying principle for the biological and cognitive sciences. It states that for a system to maintain non-equilibrium steady-state with its environment it must minimise its (information-theoretic) free energy. Under the FEP, to minimise free energy is equivalent to engaging in approximate Bayesian inference. According to the FEP, therefore, inference is at the explanatory base of biology and cognition. In this paper, we discuss a specific challenge to this inferential formulation of adaptive self-organisation. We call it the universal ethology challenge : it states that the FEP cannot unify biology and cognition, for life itself (or adaptive self-organisation) does not require inferential routines to select adaptive solutions to environmental pressures (as mandated by the FEP). We show that it is possible to overcome the universal ethology challenge by providing a cautious and exploratory treatment of inference under the FEP. We conclude that there are good reasons for thinking that the FEP can unify biology and cognition under the notion of approximate Bayesian inference, even if further challenges must be addressed to properly draw such a conclusion.

Cognitive niche construction is the process whereby organisms create and maintain cause-effect models of their niche as guides for fitness influencing behavior. Extended mind theory claims that cognitive processes extend beyond the brain to include predictable states of the world. Active inference and predictive processing in cognitive science assume that organisms embody pre-dictive (i.e., generative) models of the world optimized by standard cognitive functions (e.g., perception, action, learning). This paper presents an active inference formulation that views cognitive niche construction as a cognitive function aimed at optimizing organisms' gen-erative models. We call that process of optimization extended active inference. K E Y W O R D S active inference, affordances, cognitive niche construction, ecological psychology, extended mind, predictive processing

Forthcoming in "Evolution, Development, and Complexity: Multiscale Models in Complex Adaptive Systems", Publisher: Springer, Editors: Michael Price et al

We review some of the main implications of the free-energy principle (FEP) for the study of the self-organization of living systems – and how the FEP can help us to understand (and model) biotic self-organization across the many temporal and spatial scales over which life exists. In order to maintain its integrity as a bounded system, any biological system-from single cells to complex organisms and societies-has to limit the disorder or dispersion (i.e., the long-run entropy) of its constituent states. We review how this can be achieved by living systems that minimize their variational free energy. Variational free energy is an information theoretic construct, originally introduced into theoretical neuroscience and biology to explain perception, action, and learning. It has since been extended to explain the evolution, development, form, and function of entire organisms, providing a principled model of biotic self-organization and autopoiesis. It has provided insights into biological systems across spatiotemporal scales, ranging from microscales (e.g., sub-and multicellular dynamics), to intermediate scales (e.g., groups of interacting animals and culture), through to macroscale phenomena (the evolution of entire species). A crucial corollary of the FEP is that an organism just is (i.e., embodies or entails) an implicit model of its environment. As such, organisms come to embody causal relationships of their ecological niche, which, in turn, is influenced by their resulting behaviors. Crucially, free-energy minimization can be shown to be equivalent to the maximization of Bayesian model evidence. This allows us to cast evolution (i.e. natural selection) in terms of Bayesian model selection, providing a robust theoretical account of how organisms come to match or accommodate the spatiotemporal complexity of their surrounding niche. In line with the theme of this volume; namely, biological complexity and self-organization, this chapter will examine a variational approach to self-organization across multiple dynamical scales.

Resumen El presente texto considera cuestiones en torno a la continuidad y la discontinuidad entre la vida y la mente. Inicia examinando dichas cuestiones desde la perspectiva del principio de energía libre (PEL). El PEL se ha vuelto considerablemente influyente tanto en la neurociencia como en la ciencia cognitiva. Postula que los organismos actúan para conservarse a sí mismos en sus estados biológicos y cognitivos esperados, y que lo logran al minimizar su energía libre, dado que el promedio de energía libre a largo plazo es entropía. El texto, por lo tanto, argumenta que no existe una sola interpretación del PEL para pensar la relación entre la vida y la mente. Algunas formulaciones del PEL dan cuenta de lo que llamamos una perspectiva de independencia entre la vida y la mente. Una perspectiva de independencia es la perspectiva cognitivista del PEL, misma que depende del procesamiento de información con contenido semántico, y por ende, restringe el rango de sistemas capaces de exhibir mentalidad. Otras perspectivas de independencia ejemplifican lo que llamamos la demasiado generosa perspectiva no-cognitivista del PEL, que parecen ir en dirección opuesta: sugieren que la mentalidad se encuentra casi en cualquier lugar. El texto continúa argumentando que el PEL no-cognitivista y sus implicaciones para pensar la relación entre la vida y la mente puede ser útilmente delimitado por las recientes aproximaciones enactivas a la ciencia cognitiva. Concluimos que la versión más contundente de la relación vida-mente las considera 1 El presente capítulo es una traducción a cargo de Laura Rodríguez Benavidez (Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, UNAM) del texto original: Kirchhoff, M. D. and Froese, T. (2017). Where there is life there is mind: In support of a strong life-mind continuity thesis. Entropy, 19(4): 169.

In this paper, we offer reasons to justify the explanatory credentials of dynamical modeling in the context of the metaplasticity thesis, located within a larger grouping of views known as 4E Cognition. Our focus is on showing that dynamicism is consistent with interventionism, and therefore with a difference-making account at the scale of system topologies that makes sui generis explanatory differences to the overall behavior of a cognitive system. In so doing, we provide a general overview of the interventionist approach. We then argue that recent mechanistic attempts at reducing dynamical modeling to a merely descriptive enterprise fail given that the explanatory standard in dynamical modeling can be shown to rest on interventionism. We conclude that dynamical modeling captures features of nested and developmentally plastic cognitive systems that cannot be explained by appeal to underlying mechanisms alone.

This paper examines the relationship between perceiving and imagining on the basis of predictive processing models in neuroscience. Contrary to the received view in philosophy of mind, which holds that perceiving and imagining are essentially distinct, these models depict perceiving and imagining as deeply unified and overlapping. It is argued that there are two mutually exclusive implications of taking perception and imagination to be fundamentally unified. The view defended is what I dub the ecological-enactive view given that it does not succumb to internalism about the mind-world relation, and allows one to keep a version of the received view in play.

This paper examines the application of the mutual manipulability criterion as a way to demarcate constituents of cognitive systems from resources having a mere causal influence on cognitive systems. In particular, it is argued that on at least one interpretation of the mutual manipulability criterion, the criterion is inadequate because the criterion is conceptualized as identifying synchronic dependence between higher and lower 'levels' in mechanisms. It is argued that there is a second articulation of the mutual manipulability criterion available, and that it should be preferred for at least two reasons. The first is that the criterion of mutual manipulability is an instance of continuous reciprocal causation. The second is that it has implications for how to understand this distinction between causation and constitution. It is shown that when considering dynamic systems, continuous reciprocal causation - ubiquitous in dynamical systems - is a form of constitutive causality, which entails that causal factors may, in the right circumstances, by genuine constitutive factors. This notion of constitutive causality lends support to conceiving of the mutual manipulability criterion as a genuine demarcation principle in the debate over the boundaries of mind.

The life-mind continuity thesis is difficult to study, especially because the relation between life and mind is not yet fully understood, and given that there is still no consensus view neither on what qualifies as life nor on what defines mind. Rather than taking up the much more difficult task of addressing the many different ways of explaining how life relates to mind, and vice versa, this paper considers two influential accounts addressing how best to understand the life-mind continuity thesis: first, the theory of autopoiesis developed in biology and in enactivist theories of mind; and second, the recently formulated free energy principle in theoretical neurobiology, with roots in thermodynamics and statistical physics. This paper advances two claims. The first is that the free energy principle should be preferred to the theory of autopoiesis, as classically formulated. The second is that the free energy principle and the recently formulated framework of autopoietic enactivism can be shown to be genuinely continuous on a number of central issues, thus raising the possibility of a joint venture when it comes to answering the life-mind continuity thesis.

This commentary focuses on an ontological claim made by the authors of this target article: that perceiving, imagining and dreaming are inseparable. It explores how best to understand this " inseparability condition. " It is shown that the evidence needed to justify a strict reading of the inseparability condition is lacking, while there is room for a more relaxed rendition of the inseparability condition. The inferred lesson is that in developing an enactive neurophenomenology of dreaming, it is a non-trivial task to achieve clarity about the ontology of dreaming, and its relationship to imagining as well as perceiving.

In recent years, a recurrent theme in research on socially distributed cognition has been to establish the claim that the cognitive phenomenon of transactive memory is grounded in a specific mode of organization: mechanistic compositional organization. My topic in this paper is the confluence of transactive remembering or transactive memory systems and mechanistic compositional organization. In relation to this confluence, the paper scrutinizes the claim that the kind of organization grounding transactive memory systems and/or tokens of transactive remembering takes the specific form of mechanistic compositional organization – at least as the latter is usually construed. It is argued (i) that the usual account of mechanistic compositional organization is based on a synchronic composition function, and (ii) that the organization of transactive memory systems and/or transactive remembering is not well understood by way of synchronic composition. The positive account pursued is that transactive memory systems and/or transactive remembering are better understood as grounded in a diachronic composition function.

A recent surge of work on prediction-driven processing models – based on Bayesian inference and representation-heavy models – suggests that the material basis of conscious experience is inferentially secluded and neurocentrically brain bound. This paper develops an alternative account based on the free energy principle. It is argued that the free energy principle provides the right basic tools for understanding the anticipatory dynamics of the brain within a larger brain-body-environment dynamic, viewing the material basis of some conscious experiences as extensive – relational and thoroughly world-involving.

This paper examines, for the first time, the relationship between realization relations and the free energy principle in cognitive neuroscience. I argue, firstly, that the free energy principle has ramifications for the wide versus narrow realization distinction: if the free energy principle is correct, then organismic realizers are insufficient for realizing free energy minimization. I argue, secondly, that the free energy principle has implications for synchronic realization relations, because free energy minimization is realized in dynamical agent-environment couplings embedded at multiple time scales.

In this paper, I focus on a recent debate in extended cognition known as "cognitive assembly" and how cognitive assembly shares a certain kinship with the special composition question advanced in analytical metaphysics. Both the debate about cognitive assembly and the special composition question ask about the circumstances under which entities (broadly construed) compose or assemble another entity. The paper argues for two points. The first point is that insofar as the metaphysics of composition presupposes that composition is a synchronic relation of dependence, then that presupposition is inconsistent with the temporal dynamics inherent in the
process of cognitive assembly. The second point is that by developing a diachronic or temporally dynamic ontology for understanding the phenomenon of cognitive assembly, this lends support for a third wave of extended cognition.

"Most philosophical accounts of emergence are based on supervenience, with supervenience being an ontologically synchronic relation of determination. This conception of emergence as a relation of supervenience, I will argue, is unable to make sense of the kinds of emergence that are widespread in self-organizing and
nonlinear dynamical systems, including distributed cognitive systems. In these dynamical systems, an emergent property is ontological (i.e., the causal capacities of P, where P is an emergent feature, are not reducible to causal capacities of the parts, and may exert a top-down causal influence on the parts of the system) and diachronic (i.e., the relata of emergence are temporally extended, and P emerges as a result of some dynamical lower-level processes that unfold in real time)."

""Philosophical accounts of the constitution relation have been explicated in terms of synchronic relations between higher- and lower-level entities. Such accounts, I argue, are temporally austere or
impoverished, and are consequently unable to make sense of the diachronic and dynamic character of constitution in dynamical systems generally and dynamically extended cognitive processes in
particular. In this paper, my target domain is extended cognition based on insights from nonlinear dynamics. Contrariwise to the mainstream literature in both analytical metaphysics and extended cognition, I develop a nonstandard, alternative conception of constitution, which I call “diachronic process constitution”. It will be argue that only a diachronic and dynamical conception of account
of constitution is consistent with the nature of constitution in distributed cognitive processes""

This paper explores several paths by which the extended cognition (EC) thesis may overcome the coupling-constitution fallacy. In so doing, I address a couple of shortcomings in the contemporary literature. First, on the dimension of first-wave EC, I argue that constitutive arguments based on functional parity suffer from either a threat of cognitive bloat or an impasse with respect to determining the correct level of grain in the attribution of causal-functional roles. Second, on the dimension of second-wave EC, I argue that especially the complementarity approach suffers from a similar sort of dilemma as first-wave EC: an inability to justify just what entails the ontological claim of EC over the scaffolding claim of weaker approaches in cognitive science. In this paper I show that two much more promising explanations by which to ground the ontological claim of EC are available, both starting from an exploration of the coordination dynamics between environmental resources and neural resources. On the one hand, I argue that second-wave EC based on cognitive integration, with its focus on bodily manipulations constrained by cognitive norms, is capable of resolving the coupling-constitution fallacy. On the other hand, I argue that the framework of cognitive integration can be supplemented by philosophical accounts of mechanistic explanation, because such accounts enable us to explain the emergence of higher-level cognitive properties due to a system's organization-dependent structure.

This paper examines the standard view of the constitution relation used in analytical metaphysics, and proposes an alternative conception. The standard view takes the relation to hold synchronically between its relata, where these relata are typically conceived of as enduring entities. Central to the alternative view that we explore here is the idea that a metaphysically robust notion of constitution is diachronic in cases where constitution cannot hold between the very same relata at any particular time instant t and/or when the constitution relation cannot exhaustively determine the
existence of some phenomenon at any particular time instant t, because neither the parts nor the whole are wholly present at any particular time instant t. By plumping for diachronic constitution we hope to show that the metaphysics of constitution is applicable to far more dynamic and complex cases than the standard view is normally
applied to.