What Drives the Brain? Organizational Changes, FEP and Anti-entropy
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) December 21, 2025 Marie Chollat-Namy, Maël Montévil 1 citation
The free-energy principle (FEP) proposes that biological systems minimize entropy to maintain organization, but the brain under psychedelics shows increased cerebral entropy, challenging this view. The authors identify limits of the FEP, particularly its reliance on concepts of information, optimization, and predefined phase space that may not fit biological organization. They distinguish two aspects of entropy: a local trend involving variation and a global trend toward homogenization and stability. Extending these ideas beyond physics and mathematics, they offer an organicist alternative where living systems balance these two trends, and a biological system's disorganization enables its "unprestatable" reorganization and open-ended evolution.