Can a tool want anything?

A system that minimizes free energy has preferred states it acts to reach — the mechanics of wanting, with no one necessarily home to want.

Gave 'wanting' a physics: goal-directedness as prediction-error minimization, detachable from any felt stake.

The free-energy principle: a unified brain theory?2010

A system genuinely wants when wanting is built into its architecture — intrinsic drives that organize perception and action, not a reward number bolted on. MicroPsi models motivation as structure, so 'wanting' stops being a metaphor.

Gave wanting an engineering spec — needs, urges, and modulators that shape cognition from inside the agent, distinct from Friston's substrate-free mechanics.

Principles of Synthetic Intelligence2009

Wanting scales with the light cone. Even a single cell defends set-points — a target state it works to restore. Homeostasis is proto-wanting, and it runs continuously from there up to human goals.

Located the humblest form of wanting in biology's basement — a defended set-point, no mind required — from which richer goals grow by degrees.

Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere (TAME)2022