---
slug: oip-disconfirming-edge-free-energy-vs-least-action
title: Disconfirming Edge — Free Energy vs Least Action
canonical: https://miscsubjects.com/a/oip-disconfirming-edge-free-energy-vs-least-action
---

# Disconfirming Edge — Free Energy vs Least Action

## §SELF — oip-disconfirming-edge-free-energy-vs-least-action

**What this page is:** a published tension between free-energy / dissipative accounts and least-action / extremal accounts.
**What it explains:** minimize vs extremize is not the same claim; listing both as independent convergence nodes without this edge flatters the thesis.
**Why read it:** this is the kind of fight the catalogue must surface, not bury.

### The conflict

- **Least action / calculus of variations:** physical trajectories extremize an action functional (often minimize, sometimes saddle).
- **Free energy / dissipative structure:** systems maintain order by gradient consumption; the story is about **minimizing free energy** under constraints, not about the same action functional as classical mechanics.

They rhyme. They are not automatically one node. Treating C01-style gradient dissipation, free-energy principles, and least action as three independent convergences **inflates N**.

### What would reconcile them

A derivation showing free-energy gradients and least-action paths are the **same** variational object under a stated transform — with domain of validity. Until that derivation is cited in-page, the edge stands: **do not count both as fully independent**.

### Links

- [Convergence catalogue](/a/oip-convergence-catalogue)
- [Selection rule](/a/oip-disconfirming-edge-selection-rule)
- [Count discipline](/a/oip-count-discipline)

