Hi Natesh,

I'm slowly making progress. It's not so easy since it's essentially all new for me...

In your Sec. II you state and justify your minimal dissipation hypothesis. Towards the end of Sec. II you conclude that "learning dynamics are inevitable in a trade off between energy dissipation and statistical complexity". Your essay prompted me to have a (superficial) look at Still et al. 2012, who conclude that "making a predictive model of the environment and using available energy efficiently [are fundamentally related]". Is that essentially the same as your minimal dissipation hypothesis or is there a subtle difference which I'm missing?

Thanks for bearing with me, cheers, Stefan

Hi Stefan,

"Is that essentially the same as your minimal dissipation hypothesis or is there a subtle difference which I'm missing?"

--> The link between learning and energy dissipation itself is not new. Energy efficiency as a possible unifying principle has been touted before. Still obtains the bounds in her paper (derived under different assumptions) and suggests the same idea of a link between the two. The main difference is that I go further than that and hypothesize that learning is simply a manifestation of energy efficient dynamics, and that (explained in section 4 essay) perhaps we need to look at a framework in which evolution and learning as manifestation of larger thermodynamic principles. The evolution part has been suggested by England's work (discussed in the essay) and I relate it back to the minimal dissipation hypothesis and show how framing the problem as I have in section 2, we can now relate it back to known ideas in machine learning, neuroscience, etc. I saw a recent video by Still where she was trying to do something similar as well starting from her derivation of the bound and a different setup. I am reaching out to her to get her thoughts on this. Hope that answers your question.

Cheers

Natesh

Dear Natesh,

thanks for an interesting, very densely-packed essay! Your minimal dissipation hypothesis carries some immediate intuitive heft: anything minimizing its dissipation must in some ways adapt to the environment. You then turn traditional reasoning on its head, subverting the expectation that because something learns, it may minimize its dissipation (a good thing for any living system with bounded resources), arguing rather that such minimization itself is simply what constitutes learning.

It's sort of like the thinking that got rid of élan vital: once we've explained the moving around, reproducing, seeking out of food etc. it became clear that we don't need additional magic fairy dust---those sorts of things are just what's meant by the term 'life', they're not the consequence of a life-giving force being present. So in a sense, I see you attempting to do something similar for 'learning': once we've realized minimal dissipation in the agent, we find there's nothing else left over.

I'm a bit puzzled regarding your occasional mentions of quantum systems---it seems to me that essentially the same analysis could be carried out classically; nothing seems to ride on any specifically quantum features, such as superposition, interference, or quantum correlations.

Hope you do well in the contest!

Cheers,

Jochen

    Dear Ganesh,

    I suppose, you like critical examination of your essay. I must confess that I really could not follow the mathematical derivation entirely, may be due to my own limitation. But, I will grant the concluding remarks by you based on those mathematical expressions. I read this essay twice over a fortnight.

    I take the following statement as your motivation. "Open physical systems with constraints on their finite complexity, that dissipate minimally when driven by external fields, will necessarily exhibit learning and inference dynamics."

    In Fig.1b, at the first stage we see the external input coming, which is mixed with the prediction of the same coming from higher level, and up goes the 'prediction error'. This is OK, but from the next stage onwards, we see that the predictive estimator (processor/comparator) receives only the prediction error from lower level, and feedback of prediction from the next higher level. A prediction from higher level cannot be compared with the prediction error that took place at the lower level, it would make no sense. A predictive estimator must receive appropriate modular value derived (or predicted) from observation from lower level in order to be able to compare or generate prediction error. I suppose the direction of flow is incorrect. In fact, a predictive estimator should generate a prediction error internally from the predictions coming from both sides, and use the error to predict for the next higher level as well as for the lower level, which must be appropriate for both sides independently. Natesh, in cases of processing systems, always take the limiting cases to test the hypothesis. For example, when the system makes first observation, at the lowest level there is no prediction coming back from the higher level to compute the error. Similarly, at the highest level no prior action to make a correction with only incoming prediction error. Furthermore, this is also to be noted, in any realistic system, a module may receive input from multiple modules and send its output to multiple modules.

    "The joint system SA is a quantum system with two components." From this I also gather a classical system might not be able to achieve what a quantum system does, otherwise, there was no need to classify it as quantum. But then, later on I notice that you identify neo-cortex as S, and A as motor-cortex. I trust, you are equating neo-cortex and motor-cortex as quantum systems, a hard to gulp inference.

    "Agency is the capacity of a system/entity/agent/organism to act on it's environment." And if all physical entities satisfy this definition of agency, then I do not see the need of a separate definition taking the attention of some readers on the side of psychology. Being a part of environment, any reaction to the physical context is equivalent to altering the environment. But when you say, "(I am imbuing system A with agency, but not with a specific goal or purpose)", it is as if there could be a system without agency. As you defined earlier, all physical entities are natural agents. So, by stating this, you are priming a reader with certain preconceived notion of agency. Again when you say, "The optimal encoding of R0 in SA is a trade-off between exploiting known information and exploration", where does the exploration come from? I understood that A would simply react physically as per the input from S. But this reaction is aimless. The term 'exploration' also achieves the same goal of priming the reader with certain kind of agency, reinforcing the sense. "While the state of A depends upon balancing exploration with prediction", further enhances this sense.

    Even in cases where the system SA is evolving to predict the incoming input correctly, it is just a prediction of the system R, where is the purposeful goals for self sustenance or whatever coming into picture? Therefore, I suppose, one has to design an extra element in SA system such that S tries to optimize on certain parameter, to signal A to act in a particular manner. Otherwise why would S set the task of throwing a ball in any manner, let alone trying to dunk. The purpose also has to be artificially coded.

    "Due to these past inputs, let the state of the system A (motor cortex) that is most likely given the prediction-exploration trade off, corresponds to the action "throw the ball." How did the first input come, and what would be any reason to throw the ball at all?

    "We will define sense of agency (SA) as the pre-reflective subjective awareness that one is initiating, executing, and controlling one's own volitional actions in the world."

    "Thus the joint state of SA=("see ball being thrown","throw ball") as the ball is thrown will explain the sense of agency, the awareness of an action being performed as it being performed." The association of an awareness of an action being performed to the system SA is in your/our mind. I do not see where and how exactly this sense of awareness is represented in SA. Then you rain statements like, "For example, in the case of visual perception of a face, the higher levels make predictions corresponding to say, 'seeing a face'." I can accept that the system may have representation of all the parts described, but I do not see how 'seeing a face' is represented.

    The masterpiece of all statements is, "Similarly predictions made in the higher levels of the hierarchical model in SA, under the minimal dissipation hypothesis, would correspond to the higher level intention of the action-sense of agency (like say "win game" in our example)...."

    As I said about your system that goals and purposes would not arise unless especially coded in the system, the same applies to all systems. In a system like brain, such a coding is achieved by the process of natural evolution in the Darwinian sense. You may quote me on any statement here.

    Then comes the attribution of ownership, "Crucial to this process though, is a sense of ownership that the system will learn over time about what is within the system's control and what is beyond that." Natesh, what you could see as a logical extension from your own perspective of a relation of an actor and its acts, you assign that to the system.

    "... arguments have been made for inherent intentionality in every perception event [12]. We can view the upper levels of the hierarchical model in the brain as the source of only intentions and make a strong case that intention is physical."

    Imagine if we say, "intention is a specification of an information represented in a physical system", then it does not remain physical, yet it has origins in physical systems. But then, if we insist on the paradigm of 'intention is physical', then there must be a way to measure it. Though I trust what you may have meant is 'intention' arises from physical function of the universe, it does not require or depend on any non-physical phenomena.

    As a concluding remark, I am going to consider a stone as a system S embedded in surrounding heat bath, the air in thermal equilibrium. A puff of wind blows that applies certain force on the stone, but the stone remains undisplaced, and no exchange of heat (energy) takes place, i.e., the stone dissipated minimum energy. In such a scenario, what learning has taken place in S that it can predict about wind? So, any development from minimum dissipation hypothesis must conform to this limiting case. I suppose, you may require some other constraint in addition.

    In an exchange with Ellis, you wrote, "Thanks for a delightful exchange. I am enjoying myself!!" I consider you a system like SA, so which component of S and A is referring to itself as an enjoyer, and which component is being enjoyed? And why would both be claimed to be as oneself?

    I feel favorable to consider reasonably well rating for clever usage of the terms so wisely that the reader might end up with the notion of emergence of goals from minimal dissipative hypothesis. Mr Natesh, you are a magician too.

    Rajiv

      Hi Jochen,

      Thank you for your kind comments! The size limitations forced my hand with respect to the denseness. I could not have stated my ideas and thoughts better. I might borrow your comments on 'getting rid of elan vital' to better explain this for future purposes. In retrospect, I should have maybe limited the broad nature and focused with greater details on certain topics.

      Yes, you raise a good point. The derivations are done for quantum systems because that is traditionally the regime I often work with for my dissertation in nanoelectronics, classical information stored in quantum systems. No specific quantum features were needed to be invoked in my submission and as I work on updating this submission and on a formal paper, I will make that a lot clearer. Expressions similar to what I have, can conceivably still be derived for classical systems (and I think would be equal to the expressions I have with the classical Shannon entropy terms). But I am interested in obtaining the equivalent quantum operators/mappings for future work and for that the current framework will serve well. Thanks for pointing it out.

      Good luck to you in the contest as well!

      Cheers

      Natesh

      Hi Natesh, thanks for guiding me through your innovative work. And good luck for contest, Stefan

      Hi Rajiv,

      Lots to unpack here but I will do my best to answer all queries. To save space, I will paste a few lines from your comments while I try to address the entire paragraph.

      "A prediction from higher level cannot be compared with the prediction error that took place at the lower level, it would make no sense. A predictive estimator must receive appropriate modular value derived (or predicted) from observation from lower level in order to be able to compare or generate prediction error...."

      --> I did not include the details of what is inside the box of each predictive estimator, but left it to readers who might want to know more to better acquaint themselves to the concept. The direction of flow I employ is consistent with what is used in the models of hierarchical predictive coding.

      "Natesh, in cases of processing systems, always take the limiting cases to test the hypothesis. For example, when the system makes first observation, at the lowest level there is no prediction coming back from the higher level to compute the error."

      --> There could be, not necessarily a good prediction but there could be a prediction generated. Loosely stated, we do not expect newborns to make expert predictions of the world from the moment they are born. But if the brain is functioning properly, we do expect it to get better in time.

      "The joint system SA is a quantum system with two components." From this I also gather a classical system might not be able to achieve what a quantum system does, otherwise, there was no need to classify it as quantum."

      --> Not everyone jumped to that conclusion but I agree that I should have been clearer that I do not think the brain is large quantum system or needs quantum specific features. I derived it based on quantum systems given my familiarity but the same can be done for classical systems.

      "(I am imbuing system A with agency, but not with a specific goal or purpose)", it is as if there could be a system without agency. As you defined earlier, all physical entities are natural agents."

      --> I make distinctions between different types of agency along the lines of those being involuntary, unconscious and voluntary goal oriented. And I have to define agency the way I use it in my submission. I do not know how to avoid that.

      "The optimal encoding of R0 in SA is a trade-off between exploiting known information and exploration", where does the exploration come from? I understood that A would simply react physically as per the input from S. But this reaction is aimless. The term 'exploration' also achieves the same goal of priming the reader with certain kind of agency, reinforcing the sense."

      --> The exploration part has been explained in the math, and corresponds to exploration as discussed in its use, say in problems like the multiarm bandit. I do not see how using the word explorations is priming the reader. Please elaborate.

      ""Due to these past inputs, let the state of the system A (motor cortex) that is most likely given the prediction-exploration trade off, corresponds to the action "throw the ball." How did the first input come, and what would be any reason to throw the ball at all?"

      --> If you threw the ball since the states of your brain generated the appropriate signals to do so, then the goal as interpreted by your brain while your actions is being performed, would be to throw the ball. You can always have deeper introspection but I clearly state that is beyond the scope of this essay.

      "For example, in the case of visual perception of a face, the higher levels make predictions corresponding to say, 'seeing a face'." I can accept that the system may have representation of all the parts described, but I do not see how 'seeing a face' is represented."

      --> I would suggest looking up John Searle's explanation of intentionality in perception to have a better understanding of what I am talking about. Not easy to discuss such a complex topic over a blog post and Searle does a much better job than I ever can. Furthermore the deeper levels of the brain can be seen as performing a coarse graining, which would correspond to generating higher level features as one would expect in a pattern recognition system.

      "Though I trust what you may have meant is 'intention' arises from physical function of the universe, it does not require or depend on any non-physical phenomena."

      --> Agreed.

      "As a concluding remark, I am going to consider a stone as a system S embedded in surrounding heat bath, the air in thermal equilibrium. A puff of wind blows that applies certain force on the stone, but the stone remains undisplaced, and no exchange of heat (energy) takes place, i.e., the stone dissipated minimum energy. In such a scenario, what learning has taken place in S that it can predict about wind? So, any development from minimum dissipation hypothesis must conform to this limiting case."

      --> Depends. You have not specified anything about the complexity of the stone, with complexity being measured in the way I have prescribed in the essay. The Lagrangian parameter beta in the submission is a variable that can be manipulated by the system itself, and given how the complexities changes, perhaps in the right regions of complexity the rock will learn something about the wind. Similarly in the non optimal regions, we dont learn anything either.

      "In an exchange with Ellis, you wrote, "Thanks for a delightful exchange. I am enjoying myself!!" I consider you a system like SA, so which component of S and A is referring to itself as an enjoyer, and which component is being enjoyed? And why would both be claimed to be as oneself?"

      --> If I understand this correctly, I would say it is the product of the joint system SA.

      "I feel favorable to consider reasonably well rating for clever usage of the terms so wisely that the reader might end up with the notion of emergence of goals from minimal dissipative hypothesis. Mr Natesh, you are a magician too."

      --> I am not sure if this is a compliment, but if you are making a personal attack that I am the equivalent of a scientific conman using terms/phrases as a distraction, I am not going to dignify that with a response.

      Natesh

      Dear Natesh,

      what a wonderful essay, full of new ideas. In particular I like your approach using finite automta (most argumentation using statistical physics need infinte systems). Very interesting for me was the criticality hypothesis. If the collective dynamics of the brain is close to a phase transition then this dynamics must be close to chaotic dynamics (like the cascade of harmonics for the logistic map). But at this point the underlying dynamics has a fractal state space.

      You use a more statistical physics point of view but in my opinion we got similar results. Maybe you are also interested to read my essay? I considered a model for the brain network with a phase transition to a tree (so having a goal). Here the transition happens at the topology of the network.

      All the best for you and for the contest (with a strong upvoting from my side)

      Torsten

        Dear Ganesh,

        It would not be wise to attempt to repeat my arguments to emphasize the differences in understanding. But I should still make two points --

        1. Consider this that you may have missed the central themes in each of the points that I made, you may be able to discover paths to strengthen your ideas and make them robust. For example, "As I said about your system that goals and purposes would not arise unless especially coded in the system, the same applies to all systems. In a system like brain, such a coding is achieved by the process of natural evolution in the Darwinian sense." If it so happened that you realized later sometime in future the truth of this statement, you may see suddenly a different meaning in each of my statements.

        2. When I called you a magician, it was not meant to call you a 'scientific conman', many scientists believe that using the right descriptive words is needed to bring about the understanding of mental processes in physical terms. Often they believe, there isn't anything more than just a reframing of terms. And I meant, that you did a good job of that. Moreover, as you can understand that I would know the meaning of your names, therefore, I thought, you would understand the pun, and therefore, the fun in calling you with a similarly meaning word that goes well with your success. Looks like humor was lost !

        By the way, it is not easy being a 'scientific conman' and succeed. Except for a tiny few, most cannot succeed in being so. So, from that perspective also, even if not intended, it is a complement.

        Rajiv

        P.S. At least you would have noticed the amount of time that I must have spent on your essay !

        Dear Ganesh,

        I reread my own earlier comment. And then I realized, that several statements I wrote that could open a young PhD student mind. For example,

        1. The association of an awareness of an action being performed to the system SA is in your/our mind. I do not see where and how exactly this sense of awareness is represented in SA.

        So, that you can easily see that we have a tendency to assign the logical interpretation of our own mind into the processing systems so very easily -- a learning, what to be wary of in our thinking.

        2. I am going to consider a stone as a system S embedded in surrounding heat bath, the air in thermal equilibrium.

        So that next time, you will peruse your own statements with greater scrutiny to observe that your statements can be interpreted from very general or very narrow perspective.

        3. "Thanks for a delightful exchange. I am enjoying myself!!" I consider you a system like SA, so which component of S and A is referring to itself as an enjoyer, and which component is being enjoyed? And why would both be claimed to be as oneself?

        Placing you in a logical dilemma, so that you can ponder and get the deeper meanings of your objectives. It is also to demonstrate that there is always certain deeper implications that one should be careful about. And to open a mind that our understanding of nature must apply to our routine reflections, otherwise, you will not see the universality of applications of scientific thoughts.

        I am sure, you will see that such confrontations with rationality could open minds of a budding scientist.

        Rajiv

        Dear Torsten,

        Thank you for the encouraging comments and the rating. I agree that Markov finite automata could be a very powerful and useful tool in studying the brain. Yes, I had read about the criticality hypothesis in neuroscience a few years ago and was not very convinced of it back then. It was surprising to me that the minimal dissipation hypothesis could be framed to predict this idea and the results look promising.

        I will definitely have a close look at your work and reply on your page in detail later today.

        "But at this point the underlying dynamics has a fractal state space."

        --> Agreed. I am beginning to study attractors, chaotic dynamics, etc. in more detail now. My knowledge at this moment is very limited, but the idea I am most interested in that area are strange non-chaotic attractors.

        "I considered a model for the brain network with a phase transition to a tree (so having a goal). Here the transition happens at the topology of the network."

        --> This sounds very interesting and promising. I will reach out to you on your page.

        Thanks and good luck on the contest.

        Cheers

        Natesh

        Meet up the New Cartesian Physic, based on the identity of space and matter. You need it, because it showed that the formula of mass-energy equivalence comes from the pressure of the Universe, the flow of force which on the corpuscle is equal to the product of Planck's constant to the speed of light.

        New Cartesian Physics has enormous potential in understanding the world. To show this potential I ventured to give "materialistic explanations of the paranormal and supernatural" is the title of my essay.

        Visit my essay, you will find there the New Cartesian Physic. After you give a post in my topic, I have to do the same in your theme

        sincerely,

        Dizhechko Boris

          Natesh,

          I'm glad to see another engineer in the contest. I won't pretend to understand fully what you have presented. My comprehension of your work is at most 50%. Having said that, it is clear to me that you have presented a break-through concept that connects the physical to the mental. You have quantified the ability to learn and done so in a manner that is not human-centric or even life-centric.

          I can offer one observation from Chemical Engineering that might be useful to you. We have an area of study called Process Control. This is dedicated to controlling flow rates and temperatures and pressures and all such variables associated with chemical operations. In this field, we use concepts such as critically-damped, under-damped, and over-damped. These concepts are very similar to what you present near the end of your essay. There are also a host of methods available for what type of control to select and how to tune the control loops. If your university has a Department of Chemical Engineering, it might be worth spending a few hours discussing these items with some of the ChE faculty.

          Best Regards and Good Luck,

          Gary Simpson

            Dear Gary,

            Thank you for your kind comments. Yes, I did not find many other engineer submissions here as well, so its good to meet another one. I do think the ideas presented here are potentially very useful and perhaps I need to do a better job of explaining myself better that everyone understands the work completely.

            "You have quantified the ability to learn and done so in a manner that is not human-centric or even life-centric."

            --> Could not have phrased it better myself. That was the goal (pardon the pun, couldnt help myself).

            And your comments on over/critical/under damping is very interesting. I would be very interested in the control mechanisms especially and I will follow your advice and reach out to the Chem. Engineering department to better acquaint myself with ideas they have. The level I have presented is too high level and I will need the detailed mechanisms associated at the chemical levels to make further progress. Which as a computer engineer is to figure out how to build one of these systems :)

            Cheers

            Natesh

            Hi Boris,

            I do not have the knowledge expertise to understand or critically judge your essay, so I am going to not comment or rate it to be fair. Thanks and good luck.

            Natesh

            Dear Rajiv,

            I appreciate the time you took to provide detailed questions and criticisms of my work. I will also thank you for your complement. Where I come from in India, my name is not associated with the meaning of a 'magician', hence I could not immediately see the humor aspect of your comment. You are a senior scientist with greater experience than I and I will respect that and thank you for your time and important comments that has given me a lot to think about further as I continue my work. Cheers

            Natesh