A Collective Variational Principle Unifying Bayesian Inference, Game Theory, and Thermodynamics
Collective intelligence emerges across biological, physical, and artificial systems without central coordination, yet a unifying principle governing such behaviour remains elusive. The Free Energy Principle explains how individual agents adapt through variational inference, while game theory formalises strategic interactions. Here we introduce the Game-Theoretic Free Energy Principle, a unified framework showing that multi-agent systems performing local free-energy minimisation implicitly implem
Record details
Published: 30 April 2026
Source: arXiv
Category: Research
Topics: Agents & autonomy · Environment · Biotech
Retrieved: 14 July 2026
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ethics.ai (30 April 2026), “A Collective Variational Principle Unifying Bayesian Inference, Game Theory, and Thermodynamics,” evidence record 5159, https://ethics.ai/record/5159 (originally published by arXiv).
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