What is the free energy principle? How do our brains use active inference to manage uncertainty and stress?
On this episode, we talk with Karl Friston, world-renowned neuroscientist at University College London, about his free energy principle. In order for the human brain or any other self-evidencing system (be it Earthly or alien) to exist, they must be able to make inferences about their environments, and adjust their internal models of the world to resist entropy. In the show, we discuss how Karl’s previous work as a psychiatrist led him to this theory, then take a deep dive into the free energy principle, discussing how it can help us understand stress, agency, DNA, and the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe.
Cover art: Keating Shahmehri
--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bigbiology/supportLong-term experimental evolution in the wild (Ep 106)
Stickle-back to the future: experimental evolution in nature (Ep 121)
The future of Big Biology
Shifting mutational landscapes (Ep 120)
Big Biology Presents: The Naked Scientists Podcast
Biology as its own metaphor (Ep 119)
Dog in the Machine (Ep 118)
The time of your life (Ep 117)
Rewilding biology (Ep 116)
Does a porpoise have a purpose? Agency and goals in evolution (Ep 115)
Follow the data: the search for COVID’s origin (Ep 105)
Cooperation versus conflict and the path to multicellularity (Ep 107)
How power explains the history of life (Ep 114)
Cephalopods: aliens among us (Ep 113)
The Entangled Organism (Ep 112)
Evolution of the Invaders (Ep 111)
Tempest in a barcode: how rapidly can we (and should we) identify new species? (Ep 110)
Nothing in biology makes sense except through time (Ep 109)
The dialectical biologists: challenges of studying evolution in nature (Ep 108)
Long-term experimental evolution in the wild (Ep 106)
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
DNA Today: A Genetics Podcast
Short Wave
Stuff To Blow Your Mind
Unexplainable
Speaking of Psychology