Brain Function: Free Energy, Predictive Processing and Active Inference

Abstract

"A potential new theory of brain function based on Bayesian inference could be that the brain is a predictive processing system that generates internal models of the world to make predictions about future sensory inputs. According to this theory, the brain generates internal models based on prior beliefs and past experiences, which are used to make predictions about future sensory inputs. In summary, the free energy principle focuses on minimizing the difference between the predicted and actual sensory inputs using a hierarchical generative model, while the predictive processing theory focuses on generating and updating internal models to make predictions about future sensory inputs."