The entropic basis of collective behaviour

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new theoretical framework based on the causal entropic principle to explain collective behavior in groups of intelligent agents, linking entropy maximization to social cohesion and decision-making.

Contribution

It develops a general abstract model predicting social interactions and collective outcomes based on entropy maximization, unifying diverse observations in human and animal groups.

Findings

Agents tend to maximize future path entropy by maintaining group cohesion.

Social interactions follow Weber's law of proportional response.

The model explains the neurological basis of social response mechanisms.

Abstract

In this paper, we identify a radically new viewpoint on the collective behaviour of groups of intelligent agents. We first develop a highly general abstract model for the possible future lives that these agents may encounter as a result of their decisions. In the context of these possible futures, we show that the causal entropic principle, whereby agents follow behavioural rules that maximise their entropy over all paths through the future, predicts many of the observed features of social interactions between individuals in both human and animal groups. Our results indicate that agents are often able to maximise their future path entropy by remaining cohesive as a group, and that this cohesion leads to collectively intelligent outcomes that depend strongly on the distribution of the number of future paths that are possible. We derive social interaction rules that are consistent with maximum-entropy group behaviour for both discrete and continuous decision spaces. Our analysis further predicts that social interactions are likely to be fundamentally based on Weber's law of response to proportional stimuli, supporting many studies that find a neurological basis for this stimulus-response mechanism, and providing a novel basis for the common assumption of linearly additive 'social forces' in simulation studies of collective behaviour.