Yes, the way the active inference people (in particular - much less so than the
predictive processing people) write/talk is either simply very dense *or* laden
with bias.
But re: your cross-trophy (?) comment - I can't help but think we're a lot more
like octupusses than we want to admit. Each anatomical region of the brain
might be thought of as a semi-independent ganglion. And maybe it just so
happens our ganglia are clustered in our head/CNS for convenience or some sort
of energy minimization ... or maybe risk minimization (which is why the
meningeal lymphatic architecture paper was included in my list). Sure, *some*
newer regions may only be 'efficient' because our ganglia are co-located. But
we might also be able to smear those out, distribute them through (an
artificial) organism with other pathways.
Anyway, my point is that if we thought of these subnetworks/circuits as
separate ganglia that could have been located closer to the sensorimotor
manifold they manage, then interoception kindasorta reduces away.
On 7/11/26 3:33 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
I skimmed the predictive processing chapter. My main thought was wondering if
it still seemed interesting if translated into less jargon-ey English.
My second thought was: Doesn't Gibson help with this? Isn't the "loop" problem a
"problem" at least in part because you are trying to find the loops inside the organism
instead of in the larger organism-environment system?
/If/ there is specification in the ambient energy, /then /the loop can extend outside the organism, and exist at
whatever scale the relevant patterns exist at. Yes, you need sufficient neuronal support for the organism to do their
part of the loop... at least with us very-neuronal organisms... but that type of "complexity" is different
than the complexity one might imagine if they thought _all_ the work had to happen inside the head. For example,
recognizing that one is accelerating towards the ground --- because the rate of optic expansion is accelerating ---
could be much easier than trying to "predict" whether one is accelerating towards the ground by comparing a
series of snapshot images and trying to neuronally create an internal model of everything happening around you. You can
offload most of that by not trying to "model" things that are directly perceivable. And that can extend as
far as we can extend "perceivable."
Re the first thought.... Here is a quote:
The second type of predictive circuitmight support the sequencing and arbitration of behaviors. Simple solutions to these problemsmight appeal to generative models for sequential dynamics (Parr et al., 2023). For example, locomotion behavior in C. elegans might be supported by sequential generativemodels that encode expected transitions among locomotion behaviors(e.g., forward and backward movements, left and right turns), with decision points corresponding to bifurcations in the dynamical sequences (Kato et al., 2015). In turn, the transitions prioritized at bifurcation points might depend partially on external sensation and partially on internal (e.g., interoceptive) sensations reporting impending drives and needs, which leads us to the next point.
So far as I can tell, that means something like:
A second thing well-developed neuron clumps do is ensure movements happen in order, so as to form coherent "behaviors." We can understand how this happens in several ways, some of which Ph.D.-level scientists call "simple." Roundworms, for example, swim in predictable ways, sometimes changing direction. Those turns sometimes depend on external factors, at least in part.
Seriously... this might be my weird form of getting old and yelling at kids to get off my lawn...
but... Ugh... A lot of that might as well be pretentious continental philosophers stringing jargon
together. "The epoch of the logos thus debases writing considered as mediation of mediation
and as a fall into the exteriority of meaning. To this epoch belongs the difference between
signified and signifier, or at least the strange separation of their 'parallelism,' and the
exteriority, however extenuated, of the one to the other." Orwell could take at least half the
sentences as examples of bad writing, and not be wrong. Even in my attempt at a translation, the
word "ensure" is highly suspect.
Best,
Eric
<mailto:[email protected]>
On Tue, Jul 7, 2026 at 10:35 AM glen <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Of course. You have a knack for pushing my buttons. 8^D
What irritates me about all this active inference and predictive processing advocacy
[⛧] is well-represented in the title of that chapter "From Sensorimotor Skills to
Higher Cognition". [grrrr] The reason I took the time to download it and start
skimming it was my hope for a thorough *composition* from the very small-fast feedback
loops to the large-slow ones. There are a lot of citations. So maybe the clues are in
there. But I'm lazy.
What I *want* ... what I really really want is evidence of predictive
processing in a minimal model organism like C. Elegans or Drosophilia. Such
exist [1-5]! But now we need something like connectome (or simpler?) circuits
in more complex organisms that show how small-fast predictive processing
composes into large-slow predictive processing. Does the model work at *all*
scales? Only some scales? Is it like a percolating stew of predictions, some of
which are suppressed by the larger circuits?
Speaking of which, I discovered this book just last night:
https://bookshop.org/p/books/from-human-reasoning-to-belief-an-empirical-account-joshua-mugg/de6c8394b4e24d99?ean=9781032736952
<https://bookshop.org/p/books/from-human-reasoning-to-belief-an-empirical-account-joshua-mugg/de6c8394b4e24d99?ean=9781032736952>
But as always, it's silly to keep buying books I'll never read. I post it here in the
hopes that you readers out there might read it and tell me what it says ... or maybe I'll
buy the epub and feed it to Claude ... or maybe it's read it already? I haven't checked.
You'll remember we've had such arguments before, when you claimed I *must* believe in the
floor in order to get out of bed in the morning. And my counter was that it is my *doubt*
about the existence of the floor that allows me to get out of bed. IDK if Mugg's "DJ
mixing board" model fits one of our stances better. But I do like it better than the
overly simplistic fast vs slow thinking model.
[1] Dimakou A, Pezzulo G, Zangrossi A, Corbetta M. The predictive nature of
spontaneous brain activity across scales and species. Neuron. Published online
March 1, 2025. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2025.02.009
[2] Kaplan H, Nichols A, Zimmer M. Sensorimotor integration in
Caenorhabditis elegans: a reappraisal towards dynamic and distributed
computations. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological
Sciences. 2018;373. doi:10.1098/rstb.2017.0371
[3] Kim A, Fitzgerald J, Maimon G. Cellular evidence for efference copy in
Drosophila visuomotor processing. Nature neuroscience. 2015;18:1247-1255.
doi:10.1038/nn.4083
[4] Lin A, Witvliet D, Hernandez-Nunez L, Linderman S, Samuel A,
Venkatachalam V. Imaging whole-brain activity to understand behavior. Nature
reviews Physics. 2022;4:292-305. doi:10.1038/s42254-022-00430-w
[5] Wang S, Segev I, Borst A, Palmer S. Maximally efficient prediction in
the early fly visual system may support evasive flight maneuvers. PLoS
Computational Biology. 2019;17. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008965
[⛧] It seems to me that most of the peri-Friston work borders on advocacy
of the model(s) as opposed to challenging them. But I'm not a scholar. So my
scope is very small.
On 7/6/26 8:15 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> Hi, Glen,
>
> I liked the predictive processing thing. It coheres with an idea I have
been kicking around of late. People tend to think of cognitive processes as
putting us in touch with the world as it is. Then we look at that represented
world and make decisions about the future. Wouldn't it make more sense for
cognitive processes to put us in touch with the world as it is going to be? To
translate that back into monist talk, we live in a world of successive
anticipations. As I get more frail, I become aware of all the hard work my
cerebellum must be doing to anticipate the consequences of any action I might take
that changes my center of gravity. A delayed prediction can lead to my taking
actions that compound a balance prediction and send me to the floor. it's like I
am doing judo to myself.
>
> Is that annoying enough to feed the beast?
>
> Nick
>
> On Mon, Jul 6, 2026 at 6:31 PM glen <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>> wrote:
>
> It's so dead, here, I figure it can't hurt to post arbitrary
nonsense I've run across lately:
>
> Meningeal lymphatic architecture and drainage dynamics surrounding
the human middle meningeal artery
> https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.113693
<https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.113693> <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.113693
<https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.113693>>
>
> Constructing a lower-bound estimate of the global number of insect
species on a hyperdiverse empirical foundation
> https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2524283123
<https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2524283123>
<https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2524283123
<https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2524283123>>
>
> Predictive Processing: From Sensorimotor Skills to Higher Cognition
> https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/15999.003.0011
<https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/15999.003.0011>
<https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/15999.003.0011
<https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/15999.003.0011>>
>
> As always, I'm reading them in fitful bursts, interleaved across
each other and all the other open tabs and crap strewn about my desk. So ....
grain of salt and all.
>
--
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