Renormalising Generative Models for Active Inference: Foundations, Derivations, and Verification

Abstract

Active inference offers a unified framework for perception, learning, and action, but scaling discrete active-inference models to rich spatial and temporal domains remains difficult. Renormalising generative models (RGMs) address this challenge by composing discrete generative models across spatial and temporal scales, coarse-graining lower-level states and paths into higher-level causes for objects, events, and action. However, fully reproducing and adapting the framework remains difficult: the mathematical exposition is compact, and the reference implementations are deeply integrated within specialized software environments, leaving many algorithmic details implicit. This paper addresses these challenges by providing a self-contained, derivation-oriented account of RGMs together with an open, verified implementation. We explain how the hierarchy is built, how beliefs and actions are updated within it, and how information is passed between levels. Where the published equations and implementation differ in emphasis, we make those choices explicit and explain their modelling consequences. By clarifying the theory and separating it from its original implementation context, this work lowers practical barriers to entry and makes RGMs more transparent, auditable, and reproducible, providing a foundation for future quantitative evaluation and development on machine-learning benchmarks.