Variational ecology and the physics of sentient systems
”Unlike other self-organising systems, living organisms are unique in that they actively generate and maintain the gradients that sustain them, through adaptive actions. In other words, an organism’s self-evidencing underwrites self-organisation and the very ergodicity upon which both rest”
Bruineberg & Rietveld 2014
Self-organization, free energy minimization, and optimal grip on a field of affordances