My Perspective

Courting to survive, and to learn: an active-inference reading of the courtship–survival trade-off A classic life-history problem asks how an organism with a finite life should divide effort between surviving and reproducing. My earlier mathematical model of courtship versus survival [1] solved a two-year version by maximizing lifetime fitness over mating effort m , giving the optimal effort. So the key idea is invest hard now when survival is poor or mates are abundant now; conserve when the future is bright.  Natural selection shapes organisms whose internal models encode adaptive prior preferences. Expected free energy minimization therefore provides a mechanistic process theory for achieving fitness rather than replacing evolutionary theory. Hence, I recast the same problem as active inference i.e. action selection by minimization of expected free energy (EFE) and show two things. First, the classic optimum is recovered almost exactly as the pragmatic (preference-satisfying) l...

"ದನ ಸಿಂಗ ಹುಲಿ ಹಕ್ಕಿ ಹಾವು ಮೀನ್ ಗಳಿಗೆಲ್ಲ ।  ಇನಿಸುಣಿಸು, ಬೆದೆ, ಬೆದರು - ಅಷ್ಟೆ ಜೀವಿತವು ॥  ಮನುಜನೆಂತನಿತರಿಂ ತೃಪ್ತಿವಡೆವನವಂಗೆ ।  ಕ್ಷಣಕ್ಷಣವು ಹೊಸ ಹಸಿವು - ಮಂಕುತಿಮ್ಮ ॥ ೨೦೯ ॥" Quoting D.V.Gundappa's Mankutimma Kagga (rigmaroles for a common man) #209, "Cow, lion, tiger, snake, fish and other animals have a simple definition of life. Struggling for food, securing a mate to have a healthy progeny, being scared about life (from predators or nature) - this pretty much completes their life and they are happy if they are able to do just that. But man is not like them. He is not happy just doing the same. His desires grow and change every second." Introduction In natural world, organisms strive to survive long enough to be able to pass on their genes to the next generation. Thus biologically speaking, every individual has two primary tasks - survival and procreation. Since natural selection would work against those individuals who do not strategize in such a manner, so it is pertine...