Synthese 200 (2):1-37 (2022)
Authors | |
Abstract |
Active inference offers a unified theory of perception, learning, and decision-making at computational and neural levels of description. In this article, we address the worry that active inference may be in tension with the belief–desire–intention model within folk psychology because it does not include terms for desires at the mathematical level of description. To resolve this concern, we first provide a brief review of the historical progression from predictive coding to active inference, enabling us to distinguish between active inference formulations of motor control and active inference formulations of decision processes. We then show that, despite a superficial tension when viewed at the mathematical level of description, the active inference formalism contains terms that are readily identifiable as encoding both the objects of desire and the strength of desire at the psychological level of description. We demonstrate this with simple simulations of an active inference agent motivated to leave a dark room for different reasons. Despite their consistency, we further show how active inference may increase the granularity of folk-psychological descriptions by highlighting distinctions between drives to seek information versus reward—and how it may also offer more precise, quantitative folk-psychological predictions. Finally, we consider how the implicitly conative components of active inference may have partial analogues in other systems describable by the broader free energy principle to which it conforms.
|
Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) |
Categories |
No categories specified (categorize this paper) |
ISBN(s) | |
DOI | 10.1007/s11229-022-03480-w |
Options |
![]() ![]() ![]() |
Download options
References found in this work BETA
Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action, and the Embodied Mind.Andy Clark - 2016 - Oxford University Press USA.
Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason.Michael Bratman - 1987 - Cambridge: Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Eliminative Materialism and Propositional Attitudes.Paul M. Churchland - 1981 - Journal of Philosophy 78 (2):67-90.
View all 38 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Schema-Centred Unity and Process-Centred Pluralism of the Predictive Mind.Nina Poth - forthcoming - Minds and Machines:1-27.
Enactive-Dynamic Social Cognition and Active Inference.Inês Hipólito & Thomas van Es - 2022 - Frontiers in Psychology 13.
Similar books and articles
Tinkering with Cognitive Gadgets: Cultural Evolutionary Psychology Meets Active Inference.Paul Benjamin Badcock, Axel Constant & Maxwell James Désormeau Ramstead - 2019 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 42.
Simulating Emotions: An Active Inference Model of Emotional State Inference and Emotion Concept Learning.Ryan Smith, Thomas Parr & Karl J. Friston - 2019 - Frontiers in Psychology 10.
Representation Wars: Enacting an Armistice Through Active Inference.Axel Constant, Andy Clark & Karl J. Friston - 2021 - Frontiers in Psychology 11.
Active Inference as a Computational Framework for Consciousness.Martina G. Vilas, Ryszard Auksztulewicz & Lucia Melloni - forthcoming - Review of Philosophy and Psychology:1-20.
Free Energy: A User's Guide.Stephen Francis Mann, Ross Alexander Pain & Michael Kirchhoff - forthcoming - Biology and Philosophy.
A World Unto Itself: Human Communication as Active Inference.Jared Vasil, Paul B. Badcock, Axel Constant, Karl Friston & Maxwell J. D. Ramstead - 2020 - Frontiers in Psychology 11.
Connectionism and the Fate of Folk Psychology: A Reply to Ramsey, Stich and Garon.Malcolm Forster & Eric Saidel - 1994 - Philosophical Psychology 7 (4):437 – 452.
Attenuating Oneself.Jakub Limanowski & Karl Friston - 2020 - Philosophy and the Mind Sciences 1 (I):1-16.
Regimes of Expectations: An Active Inference Model of Social Conformity and Human Decision Making.Axel Constant, Maxwell J. D. Ramstead, Samuel P. L. Veissière & Karl Friston - 2019 - Frontiers in Psychology 10.
Action Is Enabled by Systematic Misrepresentations.Wanja Wiese - 2017 - Erkenntnis 82 (6):1233-1252.
Extended Active Inference: Constructing Predictive Cognition Beyond Skulls.Axel Constant, Andy Clark, Michael Kirchhoff & Karl J. Friston - 2022 - Mind and Language 37 (3):373-394.
Computation, Representation and Content in Noncognitive Theories of Perception.Gary Hatfield - 1989 - In Stuart Silvers (ed.), ReRepresentation. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Automated Inference in Active Logics.Michael Miller & Donald Perlis - 1996 - Journal of Applied Non-Classical Logics 6 (1):9-27.
Analytics
Added to PP index
2022-03-09
Total views
4 ( #1,278,214 of 2,506,500 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
4 ( #170,106 of 2,506,500 )
2022-03-09
Total views
4 ( #1,278,214 of 2,506,500 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
4 ( #170,106 of 2,506,500 )
How can I increase my downloads?
Downloads