A Drive to Survive
The Free Energy Principle and the Meaning of Life
$155.66
- Paperback
322 pages
- Release Date
4 March 2025
Summary
Since 2005, Karl Friston’s proposal that the principle of free energy minimization underpins the purposive behavior of living agents has evolved through thousands of publications. This principle’s central move is to formalize the drive for self-preservation in terms of a single probabilistic imperative: to survive, a living system must consistently exhibit the same “most likely” pattern of activity over time. Despite the simplicity of this central claim, the free energy principle’s complexity…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780262551328 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0262551322 |
| Author: | Kathryn Nave |
| Publisher: | MIT Press Ltd |
| Imprint: | MIT Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 322 |
| Release Date: | 4 March 2025 |
| Weight: | 369g |
| Dimensions: | 229mm x 152mm |
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What They're Saying
Critics Review
“A Drive to Survive, written by Kathryn Nave, is a timely and incisive critical assessment of the Free Energy Principle (FEP) — arguably the most ambitious attempt yet at formulating a “physics of the sentient system.” Nave’s book will appeal to anyone interested in grasping both the scope and the limitations of the FEP as a candidate for a grand unifying theory of life and mind.”
–Perception
”[A] thorough analysis of the promises of a trendy theoretical frame-work in the cognitive sciences….the work of Nave constitutes an important reference for understanding the limits of physical reductionism….the book is very well written and pleasant to read.”
—History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
About The Author
Kathryn Nave
Kathryn Nave is a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, investigating the biological roots of agency, autonomy, and intelligence. Outside of academia, she has worked as a science and technology journalist for outlets including Wired, The Guardian, The Economist, and The New Statesman.
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