Was I understanding this correctly?
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.
I needed to make sure this computation was working the way I thought it was. I opened a new tab in my browser and began feverishly skimming freely-available academic papers, searching for a particular phrase.
After a few minutes, I came across a paper titled Answering Schrödinger's Question: A Free-Energy Formulation by Friston, Ramstead, and Badcock. I chuckled at Dr. Badcock's glorious surname, because I have the maturity level of a twelve-year-old boy. It reminded me of six months earlier, sitting on Zac's bed in Colombia, talking about leaving a legacy in the world.
"What does your last name mean?" Zac asked.
"No idea," I shrugged.
"Durkin is eerily similar to Dorkin. And you're the biggest dork I know. Coincidence? I think not." He began typing Durkin into Google.
"I would laugh so hard if it meant 'idiot,'" I giggled. Zac was always calling me an idiot — usually when I made a lame joke or forgot to do something basic, like bring my passport to the Colombian migration office ("You had one thing to remember, Nikki! One thing! You know I adore you, but there's something seriously wrong with your head.")
The search results came in: Polish: from Russian Durkin, from durak 'fool', 'idiot.'
We both fell to the floor in a violent fit of laughter.
My focus returned to Dr. Badcock and his paper. I wondered if he had trouble getting laid with a surname like that.
No, no, Nikki. Focus. You're reverse-engineering the universe here! Stop thinking about bad cocks.
I sighed. So many jokes, so little time.
I began reading.
Introduction
As Schrödinger famously observed many years ago, living systems are unique among natural systems because they appear to resist the second law of thermodynamics by persisting as bounded, self-organizing systems over time. How is this remarkable feat possible? What is life? How is it realised in physical systems? And how can we explain and predict its various manifestations and behaviours? By asking such questions, Schrödinger inspired a new line of inquiry that broadly centres on evolutionary systems theory (EST), which has become one of the most pervasive paradigms in modern science.
Friston, Ramstead, and Badcock
I'd completely forgotten that Schrödinger (of Schrödinger's cat fame) had abandoned quantum physics in disgust and turned to biology instead. He'd hoped to escape the weirdness of the quantum world by studying living organisms. Ironically, if I was correct, he hadn't escaped at all. Quantum physics and the study of conscious biological systems were different sides to the same coin.
I skipped ahead.
At the turn of the millennium, the principles of EST inspired a new theory in neuroscience called the free-energy principle (FEP). Drawn chiefly from statistical thermodynamics and machine learning, the FEP is a formal model of neuronal processes that was initially proposed to explain perception, learning and action, but has since been extended to explain the evolution, development, form, and function of the brain. More recently, it has also been applied to biological systems across spatial and temporal scales, ranging from phenomena at the micro-scale (e.g., dendritic self-organisation and morphogenesis), across intermediate scales (e.g., cultural ensembles), and at the macro-scale (e.g., natural selection). We believe that this theory puts us in a strong position to answer Schrödinger’s question, and at the same time, shed new light on the mind, body, behaviour, and society.
We begin by describing how the FEP offers a plausible, mechanistic EST that applies to living systems in general. We then combine this variational principle with Tinbergen’s four research questions in biology to describe a new scientific ontology—called variational neuroethology—that can be used to develop mathematically tractable, substantive explanations of living organisms. We conclude by applying this meta-theory to the most complex living system known to date—namely, ourselves—before translating this framework into a systematic research heuristic. In doing so, we hope to highlight a plausible, computationally tractable guide to discovery in the biological, cognitive and social sciences.
Friston, Ramstead, and Badcock
Blah, blah, blah. Detail schmetail.
I skipped ahead, skimming the paper for a specific pattern.
Ah! There it was.
This sort of hierarchical structure provides a universal and recursive perspective to understand self-organisation across spatial and temporal scales, and to explain how each level contextualises (constrains) the levels both above and below. The hierarchical composition of Markov blankets within Markov blankets follows naturally from the existence of a Markov blanket that, in turn, is mandated by the existence of any system that can be distinguished from its external milieu. The key point here is that at every level, the same variational, surprise-reducing dynamics must be in play to supply Markov blankets for the level above. As we argue below, this idea offers a promising new research heuristic for the biological sciences.
Friston, Ramstead, and Badcock
I continued skimming the paper, and found the pattern again.
Self-organisation stems from dynamic systems theory in physics, and refers to the emergence of functional, higher-order patterns resulting from recursive interactions among the simpler components of coupled dynamical systems over time.
Friston, Ramstead, and Badcock
Okay, it's definitely a recursive pattern, I thought. Every Markov blanket is optimizing for the same thing.
I immediately recalled Stephen Wolfram's work on cellular automata — particularly, Rule 30. A simple recursive program generated the incredible 'random' complexity of that pattern.
Rule 30The free energy principle made a similar claim: that the complex, self-organizing behavior of living systems arises from a simple recursive program.
Hmm…
I recalled a passage from Wolfram's book, A New Kind Of Science.
It is not uncommon in the history of science that new ways of thinking are what finally allow long withstanding issues to be addressed. But I have been amazed at just how many issues central to the foundation of the existing sciences I have been able to address by using the idea of thinking in terms of simple programs. For more than a century, for example, there has been confusion about how thermodynamic behavior arises in physics. Yet from my discoveries about simple programs I have developed a quite straightforward explanation. And in biology, my discoveries provide for the first time an explicit way to understand just how it is that so many organisms exhibit such great complexity. Indeed, I even have increasing evidence that thinking in terms of simple programs will make it possible to construct a single truly fundamental theory of physics, from which space, time, quantum mechanics and all the other known features of the universe will emerge.
Stephen Wolfram
I flipped back to the Wired article about Karl Friston and scanned it for a passage that pinged in my mind.
[Friston] has written eloquently about his own obsession, dating back to childhood, with finding ways to integrate, unify, and make simple the apparent noise of the world.
Wired
Karl Friston is looking for it too, I thought. He is looking for the unifying rule.
I kept skimming through free academic papers on ResearchGate. During my brief search, I couldn't find anyone talking about the free energy principle in relation to physics, or anything other than living systems. Some researchers had noticed that entire ecosystems seemed to abide by this principle. Others had begun applying the principle to the social sciences to explain how groups like a basketball team, or a religion, self-organize. But no one had connected it to inanimate matter. If the entire universe is a conscious system, then everything — from a molecule, to a grain of sand, to a black hole — has its own Markov blanket that minimizes free energy.
I thought again about Peter Thiel's question: "What important truth do very few people agree with you on?"
David Bohm and his contrarian ideas popped into my mind. I recalled a passage from The Holographic Universe.
Because all such things are aspects of the holomovement, [Bohm] feels it has no meaning to speak of consciousness and matter as interacting. In a sense, the observer is the observed. The observer is also the measuring device, the experimental results, the laboratory, and the breeze the blows outside the laboratory. In fact, Bohm believes that consciousness is a more subtle form of matter, and the basis for any relationship between the two lies not in our own level of reality, but deep in the implicate order. Consciousness is present in various degrees of enfoldment and unfoldment in all matter, which is perhaps why plasmas possess some of the traits of living things. As Bohm puts it, “The ability of form to be active is the most characteristic feature of the mind, and we have something that is mindlike already with the electron.”
Similarly, he believes that dividing the universe up into living and nonliving things also has no meaning. Animate and inanimate matter are inseparably interwoven, and life, too, is enfolded throughout the totality of the universe. Even a rock is in some way alive, says Bohm, for life and intelligence are present not only in all of matter, but in “energy,” “space,” “time,” “the fabric of the entire universe,” and everything else we abstract out of the holomovement and mistakenly view as separate things.
The idea that consciousness and life (and indeed all things) are ensembles enfolded throughout the universe has an equally dazzling flip side. Just as every portion of a hologram contains the image of the whole, every portion of the universe enfolds the whole. This means that if we knew how to access it we could find the Andromeda galaxy in the thumbnail of our left hand. We could also find Cleopatra meeting Caesar for the first time, for in principle the whole past and implications for the whole future are also enfolded in each small region of space and time. Every cell in our body enfolds the entire cosmos. So does every leaf, every raindrop, and every dust mote, which gives new meaning to William Blake’s famous poem:
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
Michael Talbot
"Just as every portion of a hologram contains the image of the whole, every portion of the universe enfolds the whole," I whispered under my breath. "It's a recursive pattern. The free energy principle is a holographic algorithm!"
Another spark fired in my mind. I frantically began pouring through my notes, trying to find a passage from Conversations With God.
In rendering the universe as a divided version of Itself, God produced, from pure energy, all that now exists — both seen and unseen. [...]
My divine purpose in dividing Me was to create sufficient parts of Me so that I could know Myself experientially. There is only one way for the Creator to know Itself experientially as the Creator, and that is to create. And so I gave to each of the countless parts of Me (to all of My spirit children) the same power to create which I have as the whole.
This is what your religions mean when they say that you were created in the “image and likeness of God.” This doesn’t mean, as some have suggested, that our physical bodies look alike (although God can adopt whatever physical form God chooses for a particular purpose). It does mean that our essence is the same. We are composed of the same stuff. We ARE the “same stuff”! With all the same properties and abilities — including the ability to create physical reality out of thin air.
Neale Donald Walsch
My mind was reeling.
Holy shit. Souls are Markov blankets!
Oh. My. God.
I cross-referenced this realization with the passage I'd read in the scientific paper a few moments ago.
The key point here is that at every level, the same variational, surprise-reducing dynamics must be in play to supply Markov blankets for the level above.
Friston, Ramstead, and Badcock
It was just like Bohm hypothesized: every part enfolds the whole. And it was just like God said: You were created in "the image and likeness of God."
My brow furrowed in concentration as a lifetime of disparate information rapidly fused together in my mind.
But wait-
