Agency in Physics

TL;DR

This paper explores the concept of agency in physics, linking it to thermodynamics and entropy, and proposes that agency is a physical process transforming low entropy into information, with implications for biology.

Contribution

It introduces a physical framework for understanding agency, connecting it to thermodynamic irreversibility and entropy growth, and distinguishes different notions of agency.

Findings

Agency is linked to breaking dynamics' closure approximation.

Agency's time asymmetry is traced to thermodynamic irreversibility.

Agency transforms low entropy into information, possibly underlying biological information processes.

Abstract

I discuss three aspects of the notion of agency from the standpoint of physics: (i) what makes a physical system an agent; (ii) the reason for agency's time orientation; (iii) the source of the information generated in choosing an action. I observe that agency is the breaking of an approximation under which dynamics appears closed. I distinguish different notions of agency, and observe that the answer to the questions above differ in different cases. I notice a structural similarity between agency and memory, that allows us to model agency, trace its time asymmetry to thermodynamical irreversibility, and identify the source of the information generated by agency in the growth of entropy. Agency is therefore a physical mechanism that transforms low entropy into information. This may be the general mechanism at the source of the whole information on which biology builds.