主动推理如何构建现实：从神经元动力学到社会共识的精神病理学统一框架

HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article

Front. Psychiatry

Sec. Psychopathology

• 1. University Hospital for Active Treatment, Tracia University, Stara Zagora Town, Bulgaria, Stara Zagora, Bulgaria

• 2. Trakijski universitet Stara Zagora Medicinski fakultet, Stara Zagora, Bulgaria

Abstract

How does the brain transform a chaotic stream of sensory signals into a stable, shared experience of reality? This theoretical paper proposes that the brain does not passively receive the world, but actively projects it – it continuously generates predictions about sensory inputs and updates its internal model when predictions fail, a process formally described by the free energy principle and active inference. We argue that this process can be understood through an analogy with quantum decoherence – the collapse of multiple possibilities into a single actuality. By integrating insights from this analogy with active inference, we show how the brain resolves sensory uncertainty into a coherent projection of reality. A central question we address is whether projecting reality changes it. We argue that it does: a strong, coherent projection reduces uncertainty, while a weak or fragmented one amplifies prediction errors, and a distorted one – diverging from social consensus – leads to alternative realities that resist correction. This projection operates in discrete, rhythmic cycles governed by brain waves and is fine-tuned by neurochemicals that determine how much we "trust" our predictions versus new sensory data. The Default Mode Network – the brain's inner "sea" of self-awareness, memories, and context – acts as a central hub that integrates and updates these projections. Crucially, individual projections are stabilized into a shared, "solid" reality through social interaction, language, and culture – a process we call collective active inference. Within this framework, psychiatric disorders are understood as disorders of projection – distortions in how the brain generates and stabilizes its model of reality. This perspective reverses the traditional explanatory gradient: psychopathology is not merely a sensory or chemical problem, but a fundamental disruption of the brain's capacity to project a coherent world. This unifying framework offers a new foundation for both pharmacological and psychotherapeutic interventions, grounding them in a common computational logic.

Keywords

active inference, Default Mode Network, precision-weighting, predictive coding, Psychopathology, Reality construction, Reality Projection, Social synchronization

Received

21 February 2026

Accepted

28 September 2026

Copyright

© 2026 Panov and Panova. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence:

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