Fields Chris, Goldstein Adam, Sandved-Smith Lars
Independent Researcher, 11160 Caunes Minervois, France.
Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PT, UK.
Entropy (Basel). 2024 Jul 24;26(8):622. doi: 10.3390/e26080622.
When describing Active Inference Agents (AIAs), the term "energy" can have two distinct meanings. One is the energy that is utilized by the AIA (e.g., electrical energy or chemical energy). The second meaning is so-called Variational Free Energy (VFE), a statistical quantity which provides an upper bound on surprisal. In this paper, we develop an account of the former quantity-the Thermodynamic Free Energy (TFE)-and its relationship with the latter. We highlight the necessary tradeoffs between these two in a generic, quantum information-theoretic formulation, and the macroscopic consequences of those tradeoffs for the ways that organisms approach their environments. By making this tradeoff explicit, we provide a theoretical basis for the different metabolic strategies that organisms from plants to predators use to survive.
在描述主动推理智能体（AIA）时，术语“能量”可能有两种不同的含义。一种是AIA所利用的能量（例如电能或化学能）。第二种含义是所谓的变分自由能（VFE），这是一个统计量，它为惊奇度提供了一个上限。在本文中，我们阐述了前一种量——热力学自由能（TFE）——及其与后一种量的关系。我们在一个通用的量子信息理论框架中强调了这两者之间必要的权衡，以及这些权衡对于生物体与环境交互方式的宏观影响。通过明确这种权衡，我们为从植物到捕食者等各种生物体用于生存的不同代谢策略提供了理论基础。
