Embracing sensorimotor history: Time-synchronous and time-unrolled Markov blankets in the free-energy principle

Abstract

The free-energy principle (FEP) builds on an assumption that sensor-motor loops exhibit Markov blankets in stationary state. We argue that there is rarely reason to assume a system's internal and external states are conditionally independent given the sensorimotor states, and often reason to assume otherwise. However, under mild assumptions internal and external states are conditionally independent given the sensorimotor history.