Daniel Friedman works with the Active Inference Institute. I asked him how active inference and the Free Energy Principle line up with John Boyd’s real OODA loop.
A fractal loop
Daniel describes Boyd’s OODA loop as fractal. Loops run inside loops, at every scale. Most OODA diagrams flatten that into a plan-do-check-act picture, and they lose orientation in the process.
Surprise and free energy
The Free Energy Principle says living systems work to reduce surprise. A mismatch between what a system expects and what it senses is surprise. Organisms reduce it through action and active sensing. Daniel connects that to how Boyd described orientation and adaptation.
From ants to cognitive security
Daniel studied ant colonies, where foraging decisions are spread across the whole colony. We move from ants to cognitive security, a field that treats the mind as contested ground, and to fifth-generation warfare.
Active inference gives a scientific account of what Boyd sketched. Orientation sits at the center of both.
Where does your team’s picture of the world keep producing surprises?
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