Version 1
: Received: 29 September 2021 / Approved: 30 September 2021 / Online: 30 September 2021 (17:49:37 CEST)
How to cite:
Vicencio, S.; Villalobos, M.; Maldonado, P.; Vergara, R. Energy Homeostasis Principle: A Naturalistic Approach to Explain the Emergence of Behavior. Preprints2021, 2021090530. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202109.0530.v1
Vicencio, S.; Villalobos, M.; Maldonado, P.; Vergara, R. Energy Homeostasis Principle: A Naturalistic Approach to Explain the Emergence of Behavior. Preprints 2021, 2021090530. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202109.0530.v1
Vicencio, S.; Villalobos, M.; Maldonado, P.; Vergara, R. Energy Homeostasis Principle: A Naturalistic Approach to Explain the Emergence of Behavior. Preprints2021, 2021090530. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202109.0530.v1
APA Style
Vicencio, S., Villalobos, M., Maldonado, P., & Vergara, R. (2021). Energy Homeostasis Principle: A Naturalistic Approach to Explain the Emergence of Behavior. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202109.0530.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Vicencio, S., Pedro Maldonado and Rodrigo Vergara. 2021 "Energy Homeostasis Principle: A Naturalistic Approach to Explain the Emergence of Behavior" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202109.0530.v1
Abstract
Explaining the emergence of behavior and understanding on the basis of neuronal mechanisms is still elusive. One renowned proposal is the Free Energy Principle (FEP), which uses an information-theoretic framework derived from thermodynamic considerations to describe how behavior and understanding would emerge. FEP starts from a whole organism approach, based on mental states and phenomena, mapping them into the neuronal substrate. An alternative approach, the Energy Homeostasis Principle (EHP), initiates a similar explanatory effort, but starting from single neuron phenomena and building up to the whole organism’s behavior and understanding. In this work, we develop the EHP as an alternative but complementary vision to FEP and try to explain how behavior and understanding would emerge from the local requirements of the neurons. Based on EHP and a strict naturalist approach that sees living beings as physical and deterministic systems, we explain scenarios where learning would emerge without the need for volition or goals. Given these starting points, we state several considerations of how we see the nervous system, particularly the role of function, purpose, and the conception of goal-oriented behaviors. We problematize these conceptions, giving an alternative teleology-free framework in which behavior and, ultimately, understanding would still emerge. We reinterpret neural processing explaining basic learning situations up to simple anticipatory behavior. Finally, we end the work with an evolutionary perspective of how this non-goal-oriented behavior appears. We acknowledge that in the current form of our proposal, we are still far from explaining the emergence of understanding. Still, we set the ground for an alternative neuron-based framework to ultimately explain understanding.
Keywords
energy; homeostasis; neural network; behavior; free energy principle
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Other
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
