In this stupid world...

In this stupid world most people never consider that a thing is good to be done unless it is done by their own set.

George Eliot - Middlemarch (1871-72)

Moving on from George Eliot's observation, we have Microsoft Copilot's answer to this question  –

"what is Karl Friston's free energy principle" –

Karl Friston's Free Energy Principle is a fascinating framework that explains how living systems, like the brain, maintain order and adapt to their environment. At its core, it suggests that organisms minimize a quantity called "free energy," which is a measure of surprise or uncertainty about the world. By doing so, they can predict and respond to their surroundings more effectively.

This principle integrates ideas from neuroscience, physics, and Bayesian inference. It proposes that the brain acts as an "inference engine," constantly updating its internal models of the world based on sensory input. By minimizing the difference between its predictions and actual sensory data, the brain reduces uncertainty and maintains a stable state.

The Free Energy Principle has been applied to various fields, including understanding perception, action, learning, and even mental disorders. It's a unifying theory that offers insights into how biological systems resist disorder and adapt to their environments.


As the AI system says, it is a fascinating framework. It may be a neuroscientific framework, but in practical human terms it is not dissimilar to the George Eliot quote above or B. F. Skinner’s outlook on stimulus, response and reinforcement. No doubt Socrates took a similar view of group rhetoric.

To take just one example, we see Friston's framework in our political parties where individuals from the governing classes place great reliance on measuring surprise or uncertainty via the approval of their peers, not the approval of voters. Collective responsibility they call it, but this is misleading. Instead it is the minimising of surprise or uncertainty within a government peer group, this being the group and the group rhetoric which count.   

Traditional political divisions ensure that the approval of voters has secondary significance at best, one reason why we cannot expect political parties to provide competent political oversight of the permanent administration - their measure of competence is not ours and as things stand, it often can’t be. A global outlook deepens the division with national voters.

It may be possible to remedy this by greater feedback from voters such as the use of a referendum to approve any significant government policy. This would involve voters in those individual measures of surprise or uncertainty within the political classes. The nature of collective responsibility would then be changed. Opinion polls achieve this to some small degree, but the effect is weak compared to what could be a simple 'Yes' or 'No' in a binding referendum.

Friston’s framework also explains the position of reality-bound sceptics who find themselves outside certain measures of surprise or uncertainty when reality provides more powerful measures. In the sceptic's world, scepticism does minimise surprise or uncertainty. Believers minimise surprise or uncertainty by simply denying it. 

A practical example of this is the recent failure of radical gender politics in the UK. The sudden legal clarification may have been a surprise, but the ultimate failure of radical gender rhetoric was probably not a surprise to a large percentage of the population. Most were probably sceptics on this issue, even if the consequences of open discourse were uncertain.

To expand the example of UK political parties, it is possibly too optimistic to see Reform as a powerful reforming political party. Its elected members will adopt at least some of the measures they encounter within the general government model used to minimise surprise or uncertainty. Compromise will be driven by the need for worthwhile communication between Reform and the government machine - compromise to minimise surprise or uncertainty.

 In this stupid world...