Principles for living
What is in our hands
In shortAct where action changes things, and change what you expect where it does not.
The idea
Epictetus began with the distinction between what is up to us and what is not. Active inference says something similar: there are two ways of dealing with the gap between what we expect and what happens. Act on the world, when action changes the outcome; or change what we expect, when it does not. Much distress comes from using one where the other was needed: trying to control what cannot be controlled, or giving up on what was within reach.
What to try
- Faced with a problem, sort it into two columns: what we can do, and what is not up to us.
- For the first column, choose one small action. For the second, one sentence that adjusts the expectation (‘it is going to rain, we will take a coat’).
- Practise the question on small things before using it on big ones.
The common mistake
Confusing acceptance with giving up, or with not being allowed to feel anything about what cannot be controlled.
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Start here
Short, plain pieces by the researchers and good writers.
Books
Why most people recover, and what flexibility looks like in practice.
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The science behind itHow strong the evidence is, the model, videos and references.
How strong the evidence is
A way of thinking A lens for interpreting what a child does, not a rule from trials.
In active inference, expected free energy can be reduced through action (changing the data) or through perception and learning (changing the model) (Parr, Pezzulo and Friston, 2022). The adaptive choice depends on the precision of beliefs about the effect of action: act when there is contingency, update when there is not (see ‘When acting seems not to work’). Bonanno (2021) describes flexibility as noticing the context, choosing among several strategies and adjusting with feedback, an empirical version of the same idea. Epictetus’ Enchiridion (ch. 1) is the classical statement. In practice: help the person estimate contingency before choosing between acting and reinterpreting.
More technical books
The technical textbook on active inference, for those who want the formal model.
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References
- Epictetus (c. 125/2014). Discourses, Fragments, Handbook (R. Hard, Trans.). Oxford University Press.
- Parr, T., Pezzulo, G., & Friston, K. J. (2022). Active Inference: The Free Energy Principle in Mind, Brain, and Behavior. MIT Press.
- Bonanno, G. A. (2021). The End of Trauma. Basic Books.
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