A Collective Variational Principle Unifying Bayesian Inference, Game Theory, and Thermodynamics

arXiv:2604.27942v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: 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