Froese, Tom and Karelin, Georgii and Takashi, Ikegami (2024) Making mind matter with irruption theory: Bridging end-directedness and entropy production by satisfying the participation criterion. [Preprint]

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Abstract

A central ambition of an expanded theoretical biology is to provide an account of how both physiology and agency, and each in their own irreducible way, contribute to the generation of adaptive behavior. To ensure that the semiotic, communicative, representational, or meaning-bearing aspects of agency make a measurable difference to behavior generation, we introduce a test for candidate theories, the “participation criterion”: End-directedness of a behavior entails that, in principle, it is distinguishable by measurement from one without end-directedness. Two promising theories of the thermodynamic basis of end-directedness, namely Swenson’s “law of maximum entropy production (LMEP)” and Deacon’s “autogen” model, fall short arguably by construction. We then appeal to the realist and non-reductive “irruption theory” of agency as a compelling way forward. We speculate that end-directedness will show up in measurement as a local increase in unpredictability of physiological dynamics, which has the global effect of stochastically nudging the organism to the end state. Accordingly, irruption theory satisfies the participation criterion by predicting an end-directedness-dependent acceleration of the rate of entropy production. This prediction is consistent with existing research into the association between neural fluctuations and task behavior, is open to further experimental verification, and provides a novel perspective on the sources of entropy production in the organism.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Froese, Tom tom.froese@oist.jp 0000-0002-9899-5274 Karelin, Georgii Takashi, Ikegami
Keywords:	teleology; maximum entropy production principle; dissipative structures; autogen; autocatakinetics; ecological psychology; agency
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology > Function/Teleology Specific Sciences > Complex Systems Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Consciousness General Issues > Determinism/Indeterminism General Issues > Explanation General Issues > Theory/Observation
Depositing User:	Dr. Tom Froese
Date Deposited:	01 Nov 2024 12:18
Last Modified:	01 Nov 2024 12:18
Item ID:	24141
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology > Function/Teleology Specific Sciences > Complex Systems Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Consciousness General Issues > Determinism/Indeterminism General Issues > Explanation General Issues > Theory/Observation
Date:	2024
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/24141

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• Making mind matter with irruption theory: Bridging end-directedness and entropy production by satisfying the participation criterion. (deposited 06 Dec 2023 02:53)
  • Making mind matter with irruption theory: Bridging end-directedness and entropy production by satisfying the participation criterion. (deposited 01 Nov 2024 12:18) [Currently Displayed]

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