Models of Life and the Life of Models under the Free Energy Principle: A cognitive realist perspective

This paper is generally concerned with the relationship between the model-based nature of the Free Energy Principle (FEP) and a realist stance on the said models. However, instead of defending realism directly, it starts by pondering the question of the origin of scientific models and asks what makes scientists’ attempt at making representational models of their environment so successful. In search of the answer, the paper develops a cognitive realist take on FEP, by arguing that not only constructing generative models and minimising their conveyed prediction error under FEP provides a basis for explicating the origins of scientific model making, but it also helps with precisifying the notion of similarity in the context of model-based science