# The free-energy principle: a unified brain theory?

- **Author**: Karl Friston
- **Year**: 2010
- **Summary**: This highly influential paper outlines the Free Energy Principle, a comprehensive theory suggesting that the brain's primary function is to minimize prediction error, or 'surprise'. It posits that by minimizing free energy, the brain implicitly performs Bayesian inference to model the world. This provides a fundamental motivation for learning and memory: to create a better predictive model of the environment.
- **Link**: https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn2787
