Psychotic Markov Blankets: Striking a Free Energy Balance for Complex Adaptation

TL;DR

This paper introduces 'psychotic' Markov blankets as a novel framework to balance free energy in complex adaptive systems, enhancing their ability to adapt and avoid maladjustment.

Contribution

It proposes a new concept of 'psychotic' Markov blankets to understand maladjustment and offers strategies for optimizing adaptation in complex systems.

Findings

Introducing 'psychotic' Markov blankets as a tool for understanding maladjustment.

Providing directions for optimizing adaptation in complex adaptive systems.

Applicable to systems from cells to ecosystems.

Abstract

This paper proposes a framework for optimising the adaptation and attunement of a Complex Adaptive System (CAS) with its environments. The tendency towards stability can be explained by minimising free energy but high variability, noise, and over-specialized rigidity can lead to a "stuck state" in a CAS. Without perturbation (increasing free energy), the system remains stuck and unable to adapt to changing circumstances. The paper introduces the concept of 'psychotic' Markov blankets to understand and specify factors contributing to maladjustment conditions moving away from the minimum stuck state. The paper offers directions for optimising adaptation and attunement to be applied to real-world problems, from cells to behaviour, societies and ecosystems.