arXiv:2606.23122cs.AIq-bio.OT2026-06

提出可验证的生物代理理论,用时间尺度区分自主、目标导向、代理与开放性。

A Matter of Time: Towards a General Theory of Agency

  • 基于时间参数化的系统,用多维时间尺度定义代理的组织基础。
  • 识别出四类可退化的代理条件,从自主到开放性逐级递进。
  • 适用于化学、细胞、多细胞及人工系统,适合研究复杂系统智能。

代理在生物学、认知科学、人工智能和哲学中被广泛使用,但其组织基础、经验阈值及与其它目的性术语的区分标准仍未明确。本文基于时序参数化的 (F, A) 系统,提出一种以关系生物学、物理符号学和过程本体论为基础的多维生物代理理论。核心观点是:自指的物理实现必然是历时性的;构成性约束在不同特征时间尺度上作用、衰减并再生。通过按指定关系删除顺序排列的结构图谱,得到非演化阶梯的结构偏序,区分出四种可退化的条件:自主性表现为物质开放下构成性约束的内生再生;目标导向性表现为生存力偏向的维持;代理性表现为对有机体-环境耦合的内生前瞻调节;开放性表现为未来生存力所依赖变量、测量关系、效应器和规范的重构。我们将这些区分转化为对闭包敏感的机械工作流,以及语义闭包、测量-控制互补性、前瞻调节、可供性重构、句法开放性与生存力修正技能习得的初步操作签名。马尔可夫毯与主动推断被视为派生建模工具,而比克哈德的互动主义澄清了前瞻误差与规范性。该框架将代理从全有或全无的归因转变为可检验、尺度明确的研究计划,适用于化学、细胞、多细胞及人工系统。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Agency is widely invoked in biology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and philosophy, yet its organizational basis, its empirical thresholds, and the operational criteria that distinguish it from other teleonomic terminology remain unsettled. Building on temporally parametrized (F, A)-systems, we propose a multidimensional theory of biological agency grounded in relational biology, physical biosemiotics, and process ontology. Our central claim is that the precarious physical realization of self-reference is necessarily diachronic; constitutive constraints act, decay, and are regenerated over distinct characteristic timescales. By temporalizing organizational diagrams ordered by specified relation deletion, we obtain a structural partial order, rather than an evolutionary ladder, that distinguishes four defeasible conditions: autonomy as internal regeneration of constitutive constraints under material openness; goal-directedness as viability-biased maintenance; agency as endogenous anticipatory modulation of organism--environment coupling; and open-endedness as reconstruction of the variables, measurement relations, effectors, and norms through which future viability is defined. We translate these distinctions into a closure-sensitive mechanistic workflow and a provisional profile of operational signatures for semantic closure, measurement--control complementarity, anticipatory modulation, affordance reconstruction, syntactic open-endedness, and viability-corrected skill acquisition. Markov blankets and active inference are treated as derived modeling tools, while Bickhard's interactivism clarifies anticipatory error and normativity. Across chemical, cellular, multicellular, and artificial systems, our framework turns agency from an all-or-none attribution into a falsifiable, scale-explicit research program.

代理理论时间尺度系统生物学智能本质

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