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With the genetic and memetic mechanisms of human reproduction contextualized within physics, it is now possible to further examine the role of information in the processes of life. Consider, as was previously mentioned, that life processes tend towards complexity and specificity, whereas the rest of the universe tends towards disorder. Indeed, proponents of evolutionary theories are known for their expansive view of life on Earth, which scientists think began with simpler life forms and moved towards more sophisticated organisms over millions of years.
Given that neuroscience and psychology are themselves subsets of the more expansive domain of biology, it would stand to reason that not only would we expect to see a trend towards genetic complexity, but also a trend towards psychological sophistication. To some degree, this would seem to be the case given the progression of world history from small tribal groups to international alliances of hundreds of millions of people. However, before moving immediately to issues of meme propagation, one must first consider how the laws of physics might shape the fundamental mechanisms that guide the processes of human thought.
Karl J. Friston is a member of the Royal Society, a recipient of the Golden Brain Award, and hailed by some as the “genius neuroscientist” whose theories may transform artificial intelligence. Among his many achievements is the provocative, insightful, and surprisingly simple Free Energy Principle, which Friston has proposed as a kind of unified brain theory. Despite the exciting potential of his ideas, they are notorious for their complexity, difficult mathematical style, and almost-tautological nature, and are also infamous for being understood only by Friston himself and perhaps some other select few around the world:
“At Columbia’s psychiatry department, I recently led a journal club for 15 PET and fMRI researchers, PhDs and MDs all, with well over $10 million in NIH grants between us, and we tried to understand Friston’s 2010 Nature Reviews Neuroscience paper – for an hour and a half. There was a lot of mathematical knowledge in the room: three statisticians, two physicists, a physical chemist, a nuclear physicist, and a large group of neuroimagers – but apparently we didn’t have what it took. I met with a Princeton physicist, a Stanford neurophysiologist, a Cold Springs Harbor neurobiologist to discuss the paper. Again blanks, one and all.” (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 107)
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