Earth system resilience through planetary active inference.

We formalize the resilience of the Earth system under the free energy principle (Friston 2013; Parr et al, 2019; Rubin et al, 2020). This allows us to understand resilience as the self-maintenance of a non-equilibrium steady-state. This autopoietic steady-state depends on gradient flows that counter entropic dissipation by random fluctuations. These flows can also be interpreted in a statistical sense, which amounts to the claim that resilience depends upon the Earth system possessing a Markov blanket were blanket states (i.e., active and sensory states) separate internal states from external states. Our formalization rests on how the metabolic rates of the biosphere (i.e., internal states) relate vicariously to solar radiation at the Earth’s surface (i.e., external states), through the changes in greenhouse and albedo effects (i.e. active states) and ocean-driven global temperature changes (i.e. sensory states). Describing the interaction between the metabolic rates and solar radiation as climatic states—via a Markov blanket—amounts to describing the dynamics of the internal states as actively inferring external states. This underwrites climatic non-equilibrium steady-state through variational free energy minimization—and thus a form of Earth resilience, through active inference at the planetary scale.

References

Friston, K., 2013. Life as we know it. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 10(86), p.20130475.

Parr, T., Da Costa, L. and Friston, K., 2019. Markov blankets, information geometry and stochastic thermodynamics. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 378(2164), p.20190159.

Rubin, S., Parr, T., Da Costa, L. and Friston, K., 2020. Future climates: Markov blankets and active inference in the biosphere. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 17(172), p.20200503.