A Matter of Time: Towards a General Theory of Agency

2026-06-22

AI Summary

This work addresses the lack of a temporal account in existing theories regarding how agency emerges from material organization. It proposes a temporally parameterized (F, A)-system framework that integrates relational biology, physical biosemiotics, and process ontology to articulate a hierarchical theory of agency. By introducing distinct timescales into organizational closure, the framework differentiates autonomy, goal-directedness, agency, and openness. Self-referential closure is formalized as a history-dependent, revisable asynchronous dynamic Bayesian network, reconciling Rosenian anticipation with organizational closure while treating Markov blankets and active inference as derivative constructs. This approach yields a graded model of agency spanning from primordial chemical systems to semantically closed agents, offering a unified theoretical foundation for multicellular organisms, synthetic life, and neuroscience.

Abstract

Agency is often invoked in research on philosophy, biology, and cognitive science without a clear account of how it originates from material organization. Building on temporally parametrized (F, A)-systems, this paper develops a graded organizational theory of agency grounded in relational biology, physical biosemiotics, and process ontology. We argue that self-referential closure cannot be adequately conceived outside time: once the constitutive processes of a semantically closed organization are associated with distinct characteristic timescales, the organization unfolds into an out-of-sync dependency structure that can be formally redescribed as a history-dependent, revisable Asynchronous Dynamic Bayesian Network. This move allows for a principled distinction between autonomy, goal-directedness, agency, and open-endedness. Autonomy arises from precarious closure to efficient causation under material openness; goal-directedness from the maintenance of viability-supporting organization; agency appears when such organization acquires an endogenous anticipatory structure that selectively modulates organism-environment coupling in light of possible futures; open-endedness begins when this anticipatory organization can reconstruct its own future space of possibilities. Our framework reconciles Rosennean anticipation with organizational closure, restricts Markov blankets and active inference to derived formal redescriptions rather than first principles, and reinterprets computational enactivism in non-Fristonian terms. By deriving weaker temporalized organizations, our contribution outlines a hierarchy from proto-agential chemical systems to fully semantically closed agents, with implications for multicellular organisms, synthetic lifeforms, and neuroscience.

Problem

• agency
• material organization
• temporal organization
• semantic closure
• anticipatory structure

Innovation

• temporalized agency
• asynchronous dynamic Bayesian network
• organizational closure
• anticipatory systems
• graded autonomy