Blankets, Heat, and Why Free Energy Has Not Illuminated the Workings of the Brain

TL;DR

This paper critically examines the applicability of the free energy principle to understanding brain function, highlighting misconceptions and clarifying its physical and neuronal interpretations.

Contribution

It clarifies the physical basis of free energy minimization and challenges assumptions about its direct relevance to brain mechanisms.

Findings

Free energy minimization is well-founded in physical systems.

Misinterpretations have led to unsupported claims about brain function.

The free energy principle does not straightforwardly explain neural processes.

Abstract

What can we hope to learn about brains from the free energy principle? In adopting the "primordial soup" physical model, Bruineberg et al. perpetuate the unsupported notion that the free energy principle has a meaningful physical--and neuronal--interpretation. We examine how minimization of free energy arises in physical contexts, and what this can and cannot tell us about brains.