Resilience and adaptability in self-evidencing systems

TL;DR

This paper explores how the free energy principle underpins resilience and adaptability in self-organizing systems, emphasizing identity maintenance through self-reconfiguration and resilience as a fundamental aspect of existence.

Contribution

It extends previous work by linking self-organization under the free energy principle to resilience, proposing a framework for understanding resilience as self-reconfiguration and identity preservation.

Findings

Resilience is modeled as self-reconfiguration under the free energy principle.

Identity maintenance is central to resilience in self-organizing systems.

A general framework for resilience based on the free energy principle is proposed.

Abstract

In this paper we will articulate a view of resilience under the free energy principle and vice versa. The free energy principle is about existence and identity, and resilience is the condition under which things exist at all. In previous work this has been investigated as modelling resilience using the free energy principle. We will extend that work by making the case that self-organisation under the free energy principle is about resilience, in the sense that identity is a constant process of self-reconfiguration, implying the existence of a self-model and the energy to reconfigure that self-model -- and hence, the resilience of a maintained identity under changes. A general framework for thinking about resilience in this context will be sketched out and some models will be provided using that framework.