A Matter of Time: Towards a General Theory of Agency
Amahury J. López-díaz, Carlos Gershenson
arXiv Preprint Archive June 22, 2026 via arXiv
Summary
Agency emerges gradually from material organization through a hierarchy of temporal structures. By incorporating time into the analysis of self-referential biological systems, the paper distinguishes autonomy (precarious closure to efficient causation), goal-directedness (maintaining viability-supporting organization), agency (endogenous anticipatory structure modulating organism-environment coupling), and open-endedness (reconstructing future possibilities). The framework uses Asynchronous Dynamic Bayesian Networks to model history-dependent, revisable dependencies. It reconciles Rosennean anticipation with organizational closure, treats Markov blankets and active inference as derived redescriptions rather than first principles, and reinterprets computational enactivism. The hierarchy spans from proto-agential chemical systems to fully semantically closed agents, with implications for multicellular organisms, synthetic life, and neuroscience.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Cs.ai Q-bio.ot |
| Key finding | Agency originates from temporally parametrized (F, A)-systems and can be graded along a hierarchy from autonomy through goal-directedness and agency to open-endedness, based on the temporal structure of organizational closure. |
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.