Cyber kittens, or some first steps towards categorical cybernetics

zbMATH Open1485.18025arXiv2101.10483MaRDI QIDQ5019665FDOQ5019665

Authors: Toby st. Clere Smithe 

Publication date: 10 January 2022

Abstract: We define a categorical notion of cybernetic system as a dynamical realisation of a generalized open game, along with a coherence condition. We show that this notion captures a wide class of cybernetic systems in computational neuroscience and statistical machine learning, exposes their compositional structure, and gives an abstract justification for the bidirectional structure empirically observed in cortical circuits. Our construction is built on the observation that Bayesian updates compose optically, a fact which we prove along the way, via a fibred category of state-dependent stochastic channels.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.10483

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zbMATH Keywords

open dynamical systemcyberneticsactive inferenceapplied category theorycategory of opticsopen game

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Dynamic games (91A25) Axiomatic systems theory (93A05) Games with incomplete information, Bayesian games (91A27) Categories of networks and processes, compositionality (18M35)

Cites Work

• ON MUTUALLY UNBIASED BASES
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Cited In (5)

• Dynamic Operads, Dynamic Categories: From Deep Learning to Prediction Markets
• Open Dynamical Systems as Coalgebras for Polynomial Functors, with Application to Predictive Processing
• Polynomial life: the structure of adaptive systems
• Towards foundations of categorical cybernetics
• Bidirectional processes -- in category theory, physics, engineering, \dots

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