Causal Entropic Forces

Recent advances in fields ranging from cosmology to computer science have hinted at a possible deep connection between intelligence and entropy maximization, but no formal physical relationship between them has yet been established. Here, we explicitly propose a first step toward such a relationship...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Freer, Cameron E., Wissner-Gross, Alexander
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: American Physical Society 2013
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/79750
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4818-7674
Description
Summary:Recent advances in fields ranging from cosmology to computer science have hinted at a possible deep connection between intelligence and entropy maximization, but no formal physical relationship between them has yet been established. Here, we explicitly propose a first step toward such a relationship in the form of a causal generalization of entropic forces that we find can cause two defining behaviors of the human “cognitive niche”—tool use and social cooperation—to spontaneously emerge in simple physical systems. Our results suggest a potentially general thermodynamic model of adaptive behavior as a nonequilibrium process in open systems.