Hierarchical Recursive Organization and the Free Energy Principle: From Biological Self-Organization to the Psychoanalytic Mind

Abstract

The present paper argues that a systems theory epistemology (and particularly the notion of hierarchical recursive organization) provides the critical theoretical context within which the significance of Friston's (2010a) Free Energy Principle (FEP) for both evolution and psychoanalysis is best understood. Within this perspective, the FEP occupies a particular level of the hierarchical organization of the organism, which is the level of biological self-organization. This form of biological self-organization is in turn understood as foundational and pervasive to the higher levels of organization of the human organism that are of interest to both neuroscience as well as psychoanalysis. Consequently, central psychoanalytic claims should be restated, in order to be located in their proper place within a hierarchical recursive organization of the (situated) organism. In light of the FEP the realization of the psychoanalytic mind by the brain should be seen in terms of the evolution of different levels of systematic organization where the concepts of psychoanalysis describe a level of hierarchical recursive organization superordinate to that of biological self-organization and the FEP. The implication of this formulation is that while “psychoanalytic” mental processes are fundamentally subject to the FEP, they nonetheless also add their own principles of process over and above that of the FEP. A model found in Grobbelaar (1989) offers a recursive bottom-up description of the self-organization of the psychoanalytic ego as dependent on the organization of language (and affect), which is itself founded upon the tendency toward autopoiesis (self-making) within the organism, which is in turn described as formally similar to the FEP. Meaningful consilience between Grobbelaar's model and the hierarchical recursive description available in Friston's (2010a) theory is described. The paper concludes that the valuable contribution of the FEP to psychoanalysis underscores the necessity of reengagement with the core concepts of psychoanalytic theory, and the usefulness that a systems theory epistemology—particularly hierarchical recursive description—can have for this goal.

Expected Free Energy Formalizes Conflict Underlying Defense in Freudian Psychoanalysis

“…Further, following Grobbelaar ( 1989 ), and Connolly and van Deventer ( 2017 ), we could state that the constraints that operate at one level of a hierarchy must be reflected at higher levels of recursion. This means that the more “rigidly” encoded precisions of the defense must act as a constraint to the further development of the organism, including through hierarchically superordinate levels.…”

“…However, FE is not a physical energy, but an information theoretic concept; it does not quantify a thermodynamic energy, but rather quantifies a form of information present in the system: in this case the biological organism (Friston, 2010 ). However, the FEP can still play a very similar role in psychoanalytic theory to that played by the energic theory (as a formalization of the core motivator and organizational principle of activity in the person and their mind), though it may necessitate the incorporation of a systems theory epistemology to adequately do so (Connolly, 2016 ; Connolly and van Deventer, 2017 ). Most importantly for the present paper, it provides a basis for understanding how psychic processes can be quantitatively expressed.…”

“…Specifically, what is needed to incorporate a FEP-inspired description of conflict, repression and the unconscious within Freudian metapsychology is a systems-based epistemology which suggests that all the key mental processes of interest to psychoanalysis must be located within a hierarchy of organization, and must themselves be founded upon and constrained by processes at lower levels of the hierarchy (Connolly and van Deventer, 2017 ). This was expressed best in Grobbelaar ( 1989 ) as follows:…”

Steps Toward an Integrative Clinical Systems Psychology

“…However, this concept indicating some “power supply” for the mind corresponds well to the control parameter of synergetics that changes also the level of order. Also currently in neuropsychiatry, the concept of “free energy” of the brain published by Karl Friston has a rich heuristic value in understanding structural dynamics and emergence of mental phenomena ( Friston, 2010 ; Connolly and van Deventer, 2017 ). It is a fruitful metaphorical import of a concept of thermodynamics into neuropsychiatry referring to the organismic process of mapping the chaotic external world into an ordered internal map of the world on the basis of an action cycle.…”

Entropy, Free Energy, and Symbolization: Free Association at the Intersection of Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience

“…It is not, however, a question of reducing the alpha function to a neurobiological network, but of supposing that properties of psychic functioning arise from this level of biological organization, while being irreducible to biological processes. On this epistemological topic, see the analyses ofConnolly and van Deventer (2017).Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org…”