The free energy principle (FEP) has been presented as a unified brain theory, as a general principle for the self-organization of biological systems, and most recently as a principle for a theory of every thing. Additionally, active inference has been proposed as the process theory entailed by FEP that is able to model the full range of biological and cognitive events. In this paper, we challenge these two claims. We argue that FEP is not the general principle it is claimed to be, and that active inference is not the all-encompassing process theory it is purported to be either. The core aspects of our argumentation are that (i) FEP is just a way to generalize Bayesian inference to all domains by the use of a Markov blanket formalism, a generalization we call the Markov blanket trick; and that (ii) active inference presupposes successful perception and action instead of explaining them.

自由能原理 (FEP) 已作为统一大脑理论、生物系统自组织的一般原则以及最近作为万物理论的原则提出. 此外，主动推理已被提议作为 FEP 所包含的过程理论，它能够模拟所有的生物和认知事件。在本文中，我们对这两种说法提出质疑。我们认为 FEP 不是它所声称的一般原则，主动推理也不是它所声称的包罗万象的过程理论。我们论证的核心方面是 (i) FEP 只是一种通过使用马尔可夫毯子形式主义将贝叶斯推理推广到所有领域的方法，我们称之为马尔可夫毯子技巧的推广；(ii) 主动推理以成功的感知和行动为前提，而不是解释它们。