Figure 3.

a) The theory of active inference postulates that systems challenged by high environmental free energy respond either by updating their prior probability distributions or world models, or by altering their posterior probability distributions by acting on the world so as to change its effects on them. b) Reproductive cells challenged by environmental lethality can be expected either to update their prior probability distributions by altering their genomes, or to execute some behavior that changes their environment’s lethality. Genome modification by rapid evolution or lateral gene transfer is primarily a prokaryotic strategy. Motility is a successful, primarily eukaryotic strategy when environmental lethality varies over short ranges. Building a multicellular structure, a body, that protects reproductive cells from the environment provides a solution when escape is not possible.