[visionlist] Reminder: Karl Friston – “The Physics of Motivation” – Tomorrow (17 June, 16:30 UCT+1)

Tue Jun 16 10:39:02 EDT 2026

[Apologies for multiple posts; please distribute to interested people]

Dear colleagues,

This is a friendly reminder that *tomorrow*, *17 June 2026 at 16:30 BST
(UTC+1)*, Professor *Karl Friston* (University College London) will give
the inaugural seminar of the *Intrinsically Motivated and Open-ended
Learning (IMOL) Online Seminar Series*.

Professor Friston will present a talk entitled: *"The Physics of
Motivation". *More information about the talk, together with the online
meeting link, is provided below.

The seminar is open to all and may be of interest to researchers and
students working in artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning,
neuroscience, cognitive science, and related fields.

The seminar series is organised by the IMOL Community. To learn more about
IMOL or get involved, visit http://www.imol-community.org/, subscribe to
our mailing list (https://groups.google.com/g/imol-community), or join our
Discord server (https://discord.gg/PBkuCnTfu).

We look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

Best regards,

Nicola

************ MEETING DETAILS ************

- TITLE: The physics of motivation

- WHEN: 17th of June, 16:30 (UCT+1; BST)

- LINK: IMOL seminar - Karl Friston | Meeting-Join | Microsoft Teams
<https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/332210692358706?p=W4WlQZzUA9yOALkuK5>

- *WEBSITE*: https://imol-seminars.github.io/

- ABSTRACT: This overview of the free energy principle offers an account of
embodied exchange with the world that associates neuronal operations with
actively inferring the causes of our sensations. Its agenda is to link
formal (mathematical) descriptions of dynamical systems to a description of
perception in terms of beliefs and goals. The argument has two parts: the
first calls on the lawful dynamics of any (weakly mixing) ergodic system –
from a single cell organism to a human brain. These lawful dynamics suggest
that (internal) states can be interpreted as modelling or predicting the
(external) causes of sensory fluctuations. In other words, if a system
exists, its internal states must encode probabilistic beliefs about
external states. Heuristically, this means that if I exist (am) then I must
have beliefs (think). The second part of the argument is that the only
tenable beliefs I can entertain about myself are that I exist. This may
seem rather obvious; however, it transpires that this is equivalent to
believing that the world – and the way it is sampled – will resolve
uncertainty about the causes of sensations. We will consider the
implications for functional anatomy, in terms of predictive coding and
hierarchical architectures, and conclude by looking at the epistemic
behaviour that emerges – using simulations of active inference.

- SPEAKER: Karl J. Friston, MBBS, MA, MRCPsych, MAE, FMedSci, FRBS, FRS.

Professor: Queen Square Institute of Neurology, University College London.

Honorary Consultant: The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery.

Karl Friston is a theoretical neuroscientist and authority on brain
imaging. He invented statistical parametric mapping (SPM), voxel-based
morphometry (VBM) and dynamic causal modelling (DCM). These contributions
were motivated by schizophrenia research and theoretical studies of
value-learning, formulated as the dysconnection hypothesis of
schizophrenia. Mathematical contributions include Variational Laplace and
generalized filtering for hierarchical Bayesian model inversion. Friston
currently works on models of functional integration in the human brain and
the principles that underlie neuronal interactions. His main contribution
to theoretical neurobiology is a free-energy principle for action and
perception (active inference). Friston received the first Young
Investigators Award in Human Brain Mapping (1996) and was elected a Fellow
of the Academy of Medical Sciences (1999). In 2000 he was President of the
international Organization of Human Brain Mapping. In 2003 he was awarded
the Minerva Golden Brain Award and was elected a Fellow of the Royal
Society in 2006. In 2008 he received a Medal, College de France and an
Honorary Doctorate from the University of York in 2011. He became of Fellow
of the Royal Society of Biology in 2012, received the Weldon Memorial prize
and Medal in 2013 for contributions to mathematical biology and was elected
as a member of EMBO (excellence in the life sciences) in 2014 and the
Academia Europaea in (2015). He was the 2016 recipient of the Charles
Branch Award for unparalleled breakthroughs in Brain Research and the Glass
Brain Award, a lifetime achievement award in the field of human brain
mapping. He holds Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of York, Zurich
and Radboud University.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dr. Nicola Catenacci Volpi, PhD

Research Fellow in Information Theory for AI & Robotics

Adaptive Systems Research Group

The University of Hertfordshire

School of Computer Science

College Lane

Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9AB

United Kingdom

E-mail: n.catenacci-volpi at herts.ac.uk
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