Oldest Papers
The free-energy principle: a unified brain theory?
Friston, Karl
Nature·2010
Karl Friston shows that different global brain theories all describe principles by which the brain optimizes value and surprise. He discusses how these brain theories fit into the free-energy framework, suggesting that this framework might provide a unified account of brain function. A free-energy principle has been proposed recently that accounts for action, perception and learning. This Review looks at some key brain theories in the biological (for example, neural Darwinism) and physical (for example, information theory and optimal control theory) sciences from the free-energy perspective. Crucially, one key theme runs through each of these theories — optimization. Furthermore, if we look closely at what is optimized, the same quantity keeps emerging, namely value (expected reward, expected utility) or its complement, surprise (prediction error, expected cost). This is the quantity that is optimized under the free-energy principle, which suggests that several global brain theories might be unified within a free-energy framework.
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View paper →Review of pixel-level image fusion
Bo Yang, Zhong-liang Jing, Hai-tao Zhao
Journal of Shanghai Jiaotong University (Science)·2010·86 citations
No abstract available
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View paper →On a confusion about a function of consciousness
Ned Block
Cambridge Core·2010
Consciousness is a mongrel concept: there are a number of very different “consciousnesses.” Phenomenal consciousness is experience; the phenomenally conscious aspect of a state is what it is like to be in that state. The mark of access-consciousness, by contrast, is availability for use in reasoning and rationally guiding speech and action. These concepts are often partly or totally conflated, with bad results. This target article uses as an example a form of reasoning about a function of “consciousness” based on the phenomenon of blindsight. Some information about stimuli in the blind field is represented in the brains of blindsight patients, as shown by their correct “guesses.” They cannot harness this information in the service of action, however, and this is said to show that a function of phenomenal consciousness is somehow to enable information represented in the brain to guide action. But stimuli in the blind field are both access-unconscious and phenomenally unconscious. The fallacy is: an obvious function of the machinery of accessconsciousness is illicitly transferred to phenomenal consciousness.
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View paper →Action and behavior: a free-energy formulation
Karl J. Friston, Jean Daunizeau, James Kilner, Stefan J. Kiebel
Biological Cybernetics·2010·578 citations
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