Figure 1

This schematic shows the dependencies among various quantities modelling exchanges of an agent with the environment. It shows the states of the environment and the system in terms of a probabilistic dependency graph, where connections denote directed dependencies. The quantities are described within the nodes of this graph - with exemplar forms for their dependencies on other variables (see main text). Hidden (external) and internal states of the agent are separated by action and sensory states. Both action and internal states - encoding a conditional probability density function over hidden states - minimise free energy. Note that hidden states in the real world and the form of their dynamics can be different from that assumed by the generative model; this is why hidden states are in bold. See main text for further details.