A Conceptual Framework for Artificial Intelligence Combining Buddhism and the Free Energy Principle
Digital Humanities Social Science and Cultural Preservation July 11, 2026 Yasunari Miyagi, Yoko Tateishi, Moe Yorozu et al.
An AI system theory integrates the Buddhist vijñapti-mātratā philosophy with the free energy principle. The free energy principle holds that self-organized systems minimize informational free energy through active inference to reduce prediction error, explaining cognition and brain function. Vijñapti-mātratā describes consciousness as a multilayered structure of manifestation and information storage, which aligns with AI systems that compute and store information. Combining these frameworks could yield AI that not only processes knowledge but also generates actions with human-like emotional expressions.