Category:
Foundational Concepts
The Free Energy Principle (FEP) is the foundational law of Active Inference. It states that any self-organizing system (like a cell or a brain) that exists in equilibrium with its environment must minimize its ‘free energy’—a mathematical proxy for surprise or uncertainty. As outlined in the MIT Press text Active Inference, this principle unifies perception and action into a single imperative: self-evidencing. By minimizing free energy, an organism or AI agent effectively proves its own existence by maintaining a stable model of the world.
