  It has been established under very general conditions that the ergodic
properties of Markov processes are inherited by their conditional distributions
given partial information. While the existing theory provides a rather complete
picture of classical filtering models, many infinite-dimensional problems are
outside its scope. Far from being a technical issue, the infinite-dimensional
setting gives rise to surprising phenomena and new questions in filtering
theory. The aim of this paper is to discuss some elementary examples,
conjectures, and general theory that arise in this setting, and to highlight
connections with problems in statistical mechanics and ergodic theory. In
particular, we exhibit a simple example of a uniformly ergodic model in which
ergodicity of the filter undergoes a phase transition, and we develop some
qualitative understanding as to when such phenomena can and cannot occur. We
also discuss closely related problems in the setting of conditional Markov
random fields.
