Inês Hipólito

Bio: Inês Hipólito is an academic researcher from Humboldt University of Berlin. The author has contributed to research in topics: Schizophrenia (object-oriented programming) & Realism. The author has an hindex of 7, co-authored 27 publications receiving 179 citations. Previous affiliations of Inês Hipólito include King's College London & University of Wollongong.

Is the Free-Energy Principle a Formal Theory of Semantics? From Variational Density Dynamics to Neural and Phenotypic Representations

Abstract: The aim of this paper is twofold: (1) to assess whether the construct of neural representations plays an explanatory role under the variational free-energy principle and its corollary process theory, active inference; and (2) if so, to assess which philosophical stance-in relation to the ontological and epistemological status of representations-is most appropriate. We focus on non-realist (deflationary and fictionalist-instrumentalist) approaches. We consider a deflationary account of mental representation, according to which the explanatorily relevant contents of neural representations are mathematical, rather than cognitive, and a fictionalist or instrumentalist account, according to which representations are scientifically useful fictions that serve explanatory (and other) aims. After reviewing the free-energy principle and active inference, we argue that the model of adaptive phenotypes under the free-energy principle can be used to furnish a formal semantics, enabling us to assign semantic content to specific phenotypic states (the internal states of a Markovian system that exists far from equilibrium). We propose a modified fictionalist account-an organism-centered fictionalism or instrumentalism. We argue that, under the free-energy principle, pursuing even a deflationary account of the content of neural representations licenses the appeal to the kind of semantic content involved in the 'aboutness' or intentionality of cognitive systems; our position is thus coherent with, but rests on distinct assumptions from, the realist position. We argue that the free-energy principle thereby explains the aboutness or intentionality in living systems and hence their capacity to parse their sensory stream using an ontology or set of semantic factors.

Parcels and particles: Markov blankets in the brain.

Abstract: At the inception of human brain mapping, two principles of functional anatomy underwrote most conceptions-and analyses-of distributed brain responses: namely, functional segregation and integration. There are currently two main approaches to characterizing functional integration. The first is a mechanistic modeling of connectomics in terms of directed effective connectivity that mediates neuronal message passing and dynamics on neuronal circuits. The second phenomenological approach usually characterizes undirected functional connectivity (i.e., measurable correlations), in terms of intrinsic brain networks, self-organized criticality, dynamical instability, and so on. This paper describes a treatment of effective connectivity that speaks to the emergence of intrinsic brain networks and critical dynamics. It is predicated on the notion of Markov blankets that play a fundamental role in the self-organization of far from equilibrium systems. Using the apparatus of the renormalization group, we show that much of the phenomenology found in network neuroscience is an emergent property of a particular partition of neuronal states, over progressively coarser scales. As such, it offers a way of linking dynamics on directed graphs to the phenomenology of intrinsic brain networks.

Markov Blankets in the Brain

Abstract: Recent characterisations of self-organising systems depend upon the presence of a Markov blanket: a statistical boundary that mediates the interactions between what is inside of and outside of a system. We leverage this idea to provide an analysis of partitions in neuronal systems. This is applicable to brain architectures at multiple scales, enabling partitions into single neurons, brain regions, and brain-wide networks. This treatment is based upon the canonical micro-circuitry used in empirical studies of effective connectivity, so as to speak directly to practical applications. This depends upon the dynamic coupling between functional units, whose form recapitulates that of a Markov blanket at each level. The nuance afforded by partitioning neural systems in this way highlights certain limitations of modular perspectives of brain function that only consider a single level of description.

A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness-Authors' Response-Acting out our sensory experience

Abstract: Many current neurophysiological, psychophysical, and psychological approaches to vision rest on the idea that when we see, the brain produces an internal representation of the world. The activation of this internal representation is assumed to give rise to the experience of seeing. The problem with this kind of approach is that it leaves unexplained how the existence of such a detailed internal representation might produce visual consciousness. An alternative proposal is made here. We propose that seeing is a way of acting. It is a particular way of exploring the environment. Activity in internal representations does not generate the experience of seeing. The outside world serves as its own, external, representation. The experience of seeing occurs when the organism masters what we call the governing laws of sensorimotor contingency. The advantage of this approach is that it provides a natural and principled way of accounting for visual consciousness, and for the differences in the perceived quality of sensory experience in the different sensory modalities. Several lines of empirical evidence are brought forward in support of the theory, in particular: evidence from experiments in sensorimotor adaptation, visual \"filling in,\" visual stability despite eye movements, change blindness, sensory substitution, and color perception.

Plans and the Structure of Behavior

Abstract: which is used to describe a third component of thinking processes, particularly preverbal, and it denotes the concept that the world is activated by some generalized "energy" that links together causally all objects and events ; it is presumably revealed by a person's lack of curiosity about causal connections, as though they were self-evident. Aside from the rather frequent use of such key words, having strong connotations for this reviewer far away from what the author is aiming to denote, the book is written in a lucid and stimulating style that makes reading it an invigorating intellectual exercise. It is a book that is likely to have somewhat limited attraction to the full-time clinician, especially one treating adult patients. And child psychiatrists and psychologists, if reasonably well read, will most likely be familiar with the majority of references from which this author has synthesized his material. On the other hand, the scholarly and refreshing con¬ ceptual approaches of the author will appeal to psychologists, philosophers, linguists, and psychiatrists with a research bent and anyone else who wants to be provoked to do some thinking on the problems of language, language development, and the psychology of cognition. Louis A. GOTTSCHALK, M.D. Plans and the Structure of Behavior. By George A Miller, Eugene gALANTER, and Karl H. Pribram. Price, $5.00. Pp. 226. Henry Holt & Co., Inc., New York 17, 1960. This is an important book for psychiatrists and behavioral scientists, since it presents a clear, concise study of the application of cybernetics, information and computer theory to the problem of analyzing behavior. The authors have been actively engaged in behavioral research in different areas\p=m-\Millerin information and communication, Galanter in experimental psychology, and Pribram in neurophysiology. The book resulted from a series of discussions which they engaged in during a year they spent together at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Palo Alto, Calif. Their original intent was to write a diary, as it were, of the development of their ideas and, fortunately, enough of this remains to make the book clear, easy to read, and interesting. It is also fortunate, however, that in the final writing a variety of studies comparing the "behavior" of computing machines with human "cognitive behavior" have been reviewed and summarized. The result is one of the best presentations of the present status of the brain-computer problem. The authors, however, do not discuss certain aspects of this problem, such as the difference between the brain and its vast number of parallel channels, but few operations, and the modern high-speed computer with its few channels and vast numbers of operations. This omission is consistent with their interest, since it would introduce the question of mechanisms rather than the problem of the structure of behavior as it is observed in everyday life in the clinic and in experiments on learning, conditioning, etc. Similarly, they do not discuss the qualitative differences between mechanisms of memory in the computer and those in the brain. In the former, a "memory"\p=m-\ i.e., stored information\p=m-\isidentified, metaphorically speaking, by an address, whereas no such mechanism is known in the brain (personal communication, Dr. Julian Bigelow). With few exceptions, however, the data, concepts, and theories presented are handled with elegant precision, as illustrated by the discussion of Sherrington's concepts of the "Reflex" and the "Synapse," Kurt Lewin's ideas of "tension states," and the numerous references to the work of Newell, Shaw, and Simon on computers and logic. There are, nevertheless, areas with

Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. By L. Wittgenstein. Edited by G. H. Von Wright, R. Rhees and G. E. M. Anscombe. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Pp. 400. 37s. 6d. 1956. (Basil Blackwell, Oxford)

Abstract: Wittgenstein's work remains, undeniably, now, that off one of those few philosophers who will be read by all future generations.

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