title: Causal entropic forces.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Applied Computational Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA. alexwg@post.harvard.edu
authors.forename: A D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Wissner-Gross
authors.forename: C E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Freer