( Gavin
Ritz 2011.11.06.18.28NZT)
I think someone made references
to Friston’s work with Neuro-imaging.
I had a look at this work
some months ago.
The basic proposition: is
that biological organisms resist the second law of thermodynamics.
They minimise surprise by
suppressing free-energy (predication error).
Plus a whole bunch of
other propositions.
The 1st proposition
is false, no organism in the universe can resist the second law of
thermodynamics. There is no test or evidence to suggest that any work can be
achieved in this manner.
In fact Prigogine has
shown that entropy increases in non equilibrium systems like living organisms.
And the appropriate non equilibrium entropy formulas been around for almost 40 years.
The second proposition, that
orgasms suppress free energy is probably also false. There is no evidence to
suggest this either.
If there is no free
energy then a living organism will be unable to be chemically spontaneous and
it will die.
What Friston has done is
take information theory constructs and gas theory constructs (elastic collisions,
Boltzmann’s theory of gasses) and is
making assumptions relating to brain imaging.
They are three unrelated concepts.
I’ll put it in nutshell;
it basically makes no scientific sense at all. I doubt that he has evidence to
back up his propositions.
If he did then our entire
understanding of science as we know it would fall down.
He doesn’t seem to
have an understanding of non-equilibrium thermodynamics at all.
If they and Optimal Control
theory go down this route, it is a dead end.
Regards
Gavin