Agency

Analysis of agency, autonomy, decision-making, and goal-directed behavior.

Posts

• The Physics of Agency, Part 1: The Physical Nature of Agency - Opening the flagship series, this post argues that agency is not a mystical psychological artifact b
• The Physics of Agency, Part 2: Agency vs Drift – The Thermodynamic Basis of Agency - This installment formalizes the adversary of agency: entropic drift.
• The Physics of Agency, Part 3: The Kybit - Introduces the kybit as a quantitative measure of intentional control, defined using Kullback-Leible
• The Physics of Agency, Part 1: The Physical Nature of Agency - Foundational post introducing the Physics of Agency framework.
• The Physics of Agency, Part 2: Agency vs Drift – The Thermodynamic Basis of Agency - Establishes the fundamental opposition: agency vs drift.
• The Physics of Agency, Part 3: The Kybit — A New Unit of Control - Here the series defines the kybit as the quantitative measure of intentional control, instantiated a
• The Physics of Agency, Part 4: The Law of Control Work - Establishes the Law of Control Work: exercising intentional control costs energy proportional to kyb
• The Physics of Agency, Part 10: The Grand Synthesis and Future Directions - Synthesizes Physics of Agency framework and outlines future research directions.
• The Physics of Agency, Part 3: The Kybit — A New Unit of Control - Introduces the kybit as fundamental unit of control, analogous to the bit for information.
• The Physics of Agency, Part 4: The Law of Control Work — Agency Costs Energy - Establishes first thermodynamic law of agency: exercising control requires physical work proportiona
• The Physics of Agency, Part 5: The Law of Agency Decay — Entropy Always Wins - Establishes second thermodynamic law: without continuous energy input, agency capacity inevitably de
• The Physics of Agency, Part 6: The Law of Agency Limits — Perfect Control Is Impossible - Establishes third thermodynamic law: perfect, frictionless control over future outcomes is physicall
• The Physics of Agency, Part 7: Branching Realities — Agency in the Multiverse - Places Physics of Agency framework within Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI): every quantum event spli
• The Physics of Agency, Part 8: Meaning, Ethics, and Evolution Under the Physics of Agency - Explores implications of Physics of Agency for meaning, ethics, and evolution.
• The Physics of Agency, Part 9: Challenges and FAQs - Addresses key challenges to Physics of Agency framework.
• Mechanics of Agency: Quantum Decisions - Illustrates agency principles using Matching Pennies game.
• The Mechanics of Agency - Defines genuine agency through three essential criteria: (1) Embeddedness (existing within/inter
• The Mechanics of Agency: Maximal Theoretical Agent - Explores Maximum Theoretical Agent (MTA)—opposite extreme from MVA.
• Why I’m an Individualist
• Effective Decision Theory
• The Three Thermodynamic Laws of Agency - Synthesis/recap of three thermodynamic laws established in Physics of Agency series: **(1) Law of Co
• Active Inference and the Physics of Agency - Integrates Karl Friston’s Active Inference (Variational Free-Energy Principle) with the Three Thermo
• Quantum Agency in the Emergent Multiverse - Integrates David Wallace’s The Emergent Multiverse (MWI via decoherence) with Three Thermodynamic
• Intelligence is a Game We Play - Defines “game” against Wittgenstein’s family resemblance critique: **Game = interactive process wher
• Creativity as Virtual Evolution - Deepens “Evolution is All You Need” by framing human creativity as **multi-layered virtual evolution
• Do Ideas Move Atoms? - Responds to Carlos De la Guardia’s question: “Do ideas push atoms, or atoms push ideas?” Answer:
• Rights Are Forged - Rights ≠ self-evident, eternal, or divinely ordained. In subjective value framework where agency
• The Death of Objective Morality - Morality = structured hierarchy of preferences, not special kind of truth. Most believe/act as i
• The Myth of Objective Value - Core thesis: All value is subjective. Value does not exist independently—it arises only relative
• Willing and Able - Refinement of “sacrifice as signal”: Sacrifice must be both willed and within one’s power.
• Agency, Not Equality - SYNTHESIS POST for entire political applications sequence. Challenged assumptions about inequali
• Immigration Restrictions Are a Form of Harm - Immigration restrictions widely accepted, but crucial ethical dimension overlooked: Restrictions
• Inequality Is Not the Problem—Poverty Is - Inequality debates assume differences in wealth inherently cause harm/injustice (mistaken). Real
• Inequality Is Not the Problem—Poverty Is - Challenges the common focus on inequality reduction in favor of poverty alleviation.
• The Libertarian Illusion of Equal Opportunity - **Libertarians emphasize “equal opportunity” while rejecting “equal outcomes” (appealing but contrad
• The Myth of Cultural Threat - Common argument against open immigration: perceived threat to culture/stability/safety. While co
• What Counts as Consent - Precise operational definition of consent. Foundational in ethics, law, medicine, sex, governanc
• What Counts as Harm - Rigorous definition filters moral inflation. Used without precision → confusion.
• Why Coercive Redistribution Is Always Harmful - Redistribution defended by compassion/fairness/social justice—but does method itself cause harm?
• The Hidden Power of Principles - Defends principled behavior as strategically optimal, not merely morally admirable.
• Can Markets Provide National Defense? - Comprehensive argument that markets can effectively provide national defense, challenging the strong
• Modern Monetary Fallacy - Comprehensive critique of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) from axionic/libertarian perspective.
• Forever Adolescents - Critiques liberal democracies for institutionalizing permanent adolescence by balancing individualis
• The Ethics of the Unconceived - Defends embryo selection against “murder” accusations.
• Justice After Colonization - Proposes agency-restoring approach to post-colonial justice.
• The Ethics of Immigration vs. Colonization - Counterfactual thought experiment: what if European arrival had been ethical immigration rather than
• Credibility, Credence, and Coercion - This post establishes precise terminological distinctions between “credible” and “credence” within A
• Instinct For Submission - This post explores why authoritarianism appears to be humanity’s psychological default while liberal
• Civilization as an Evolutionary Process - This post reconceptualizes civilization not as a stable achieved state but as a dynamic, ongoing evo
• Resolving the Paradox of Tolerance - This post resolves Popper’s paradox of tolerance (unlimited tolerance leads to tolerance’s destructi
• Against Positive Rights - This post argues that within Axio’s framework, all valid rights are negative rights.
• Look Where You’re Going - Unpacks the multi-layered wisdom in the simple advice “look where you’re going,” revealing depth fro
• Sapientism - Proposes “Sapientism” as evolution beyond humanism: Moral value resides in all sapient minds (biolog
• Absurdity vs. Freedom - Uses Candyland (deterministic, no player choice) vs chess/hockey (genuine agent choices) to illustra
• Your Brain on ChatGPT - This post analyzes an MIT study showing reduced neural activity in ChatGPT users, countering alarmis
• Luck Doesn’t Justify Coercion - This post argues luck doesn’t ethically justify coercive redistribution, responding to claim that if
• Minds and Agents - This post defines agents and minds with careful precision, exploring their relationship.
• A Minimal Ontology - Proposes deliberately circular ontology as philosophically superior to foundationalist alternatives.
• What Stoicism Gets Right - Extracts valuable Stoic insights while acknowledging limitations.
• The Agency Protection Principle - This essay proposes a refined ethical principle improving upon libertarianism’s traditional Non-Aggr
• Minds as Recursive Simulations - Develops computational definition of minds through systematic building from simpler concepts: functi
• Defending Agency - This post preemptively addresses four major critiques of Axio’s agency-based political framework (in
• Upgrading Liberty - This post proposes upgrading political philosophy from liberty as core ideal to the richer concept o
• Shrimp Ethics - This post critiques a utilitarian thought experiment claiming we should save 10¹⁰⁰ shrimp over a sin
• The Myth of Late-Stage Capitalism - This post dismantles the popular concept of “late-stage capitalism” as shorthand for contemporary ec
• Free Speech - This post fundamentally reframes the free speech debate by shifting the moral center from speakers’
• Physics Engineering - This post introduces Physics Engineering as a radical paradigm shift from viewing physics as pas
• The Pragmatic Self - This post develops concept of pragmatic self - identity as constructed through choices and actio
• The Trolley Problem - This essay deconstructs the famous Trolley Problem beyond its standard utilitarian-versus-deontology
• False Kindness - A sharp, uncompromising critique of the modern tendency to conflate compassion with comfort, this es
• CTMU vs. Chaos - A critical comparison between Christopher Langan’s CTMU (Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe)
• Beyond Clown World - A response to Wokal Distance’s claim that only “a story about God” can redeem meaning from postmoder
• Apollo’s Inscriptions - This meditative post examines the three Delphic maxims inscribed on Apollo’s temple at Delphi, revea
• Foresight Is Not Intelligence - This post critiques Elon Musk’s claim that “the ability to predict the future is the best measure of
• A Genealogy of Agency - This foundational post traces the intellectual lineage connecting Axio’s frameworks to their philoso
• The Fire and the Anvil - This post engages Patri Friedman’s claim that “there are no rights, only mechanisms”—the view that r
• The Boundaries of Force - This post maps the conceptual boundaries where coercion transitions from illegitimate domination to
• Violence vs. Coercion - This post establishes a fundamental conceptual distinction between violence and coercion that is loa
• Cultural Gravity - This post reframes cultural evolution through the lens of general relativity, arguing that cultural
• Living Shadows - This post reimagines Plato’s Cave allegory through the lens of memetics and egregores, arguing that
• The Singularity Has Already Happened - This post argues that the technological Singularity is not a future event but a historical fait acco
• Should Trillionaires Exist? - Brief polemic defending extreme wealth concentration against Bernie Sanders’ critique of Elon Musk’s
• If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies - Critique of AI doomerism slogan “If anyone builds it, everyone dies.” Argues this framing is counter
• Navigating The Multiverse - Agency operates by shifting measure across quantum branches—choosing actions that amplify desired fu
• The Ethics of Affluence - Wealth is morally neutral; its value derives from deployment.
• The Evolution of the Future - This essay identifies the emergence of long-range temporal consciousness—specifically the ability to
• When All Possibilities Happen - This essay explores the implications of many-worlds quantum mechanics for agency, probability, and e
• Quantum Free Will - This essay resolves the free will vs.
• Against Worldly Oughts - This essay critiques Brian Cantwell Smith’s thesis that normativity (truth, reference, meaning) is n
• On What Matters - This essay critiques Derek Parfit’s “On What Matters” through the lens of Conditionalism, arguing Pa
• Against Slavery - This provocative essay argues modern taxation is slavery in bureaucratized form—identical coercive s
• Sagency - This essay introduces the neologism “sagency”—fusing “sage” and “agency” to describe power disciplin
• Destructor Memes - This brief essay introduces the concept of “Destructor memes”—thought patterns that glamorize annihi
• The Cybernetics Sequence - Sequence announcement and index post.
• The Quantum Sequence - Major sequence announcement introducing QBU framework in detail.
• The Agency Criterion - Responds to Andrej Karpathy’s comparison of animal minds and LLMs.
• The Colonization of Engineering - Critiques “decolonizing engineering” curriculum for replacing epistemic rigor with cultural relativi
• The Politics of Envy - This post critiques the modern political tendency to conflate relative inequality with actual harm,
• The Shadow War - This post reinterprets the Shadow War from Babylon 5 as a philosophical conflict about civilizationa
• Games and Metagames - This post introduces the conceptual framework of nested games and metagames as a fundamental lens fo
• Jaggedness and Agency - This post dissolves the false dichotomy between AI “impossibilists” (like David Deutsch, who argue p
• Agency Conservation - This post resolves the apparent paradox of whether agency maximization can justify parasitism (refus
• The Infantilization Reflex - This post critiques the pattern where adult women are granted full agency except when romantic choic
• The Metagame of Incentives - This post examines incentives as the transmission mechanism by which higher-level games shape lower-
• The Ultimate Metagame - This post identifies the terminal level of the nested game hierarchy introduced in “Games and Metaga
• The Empathy Exploit - This post uses Einstein’s 1949 endorsement of socialism to illustrate how authoritarian ideologies w
• Integrating Meaningness - This post reconciles two apparently distinct frameworks for understanding value: Chapman’s Meaningne
• The Metagame of Patterns - This post reframes the metagame hierarchy by identifying patterns—not individuals—as the true compet
• The Pathologies of Misaligned Incentives - This post analyzes how incentive misalignment produces systemic pathologies when strategies that win
• Integrating Meaningness - This post synthesizes David Chapman’s Meaningness framework with Axio by arguing they describe the s
• The Quantum Metagame - This post establishes the deepest layer of the Metagame Sequence by reconceptualizing persistence un
• The Value Sequence - This comprehensive index organizes Axio’s complete treatment of value theory into five progressive p
• The Value Sequence - This is a comprehensive index post cataloging the entire Value Sequence—Axio’s systematic developmen
• The Viability Criterion - This post serves as the executive summary and conceptual gateway to the Value Sequence, reframing Ax
• Consciousness Explained - This post presents the Modeler-Schema Theory of Consciousness, a mechanistic account that identifies
• The Axiocracy Sequence - This comprehensive index cataloging the Axiocracy sequence—Axio’s political framework where “coheren
• Consciousness Explained - This post analyzes “The Modeler Schema Theory of Consciousness” (Heile, arXiv:2512.01073), which pro
• The AI Sequence - This index post organizes the Axio archive’s analysis of artificial intelligence into three progress
• The Thought Police - This post examines how liberal democracies can drift into thought-policing regimes through structura
• Boundary Conditions for Self-Modification - Specifies which self-modifications preserve agency vs collapse it.
• Regret Is Not a Policy Metric - Defends marijuana and gambling legalization against “failure” claims.
• The Axionic Alignment Sequence - Massive sequence announcement: 70+ posts developing constitutive theory of agency under reflection,
• Axionic Agency Lab - Announces formation of Axionic Agency Lab—research group studying constitutive conditions for agency
• Axions as a Type of Agency - Introduces “Axion” as precise noun naming constitutive structural configuration of reflective agency
• Axionic Agency — Interlude III - Documents project’s pivot from “Axionic Alignment” to “Axionic Agency.” Records shift in understandi
• Echoes of Freud - This post analyzes Freud’s lasting cultural influence not through his discredited clinical theories
• In Defense of Centrism - This essay defends centrism not as aesthetic moderation or political compromise, but as a rigorous g
• Alignment After Agency - This essay argues that AI alignment presupposes a hidden assumption rarely made explicit: that syste
• Cognition vs. Authority - This essay contrasts two non-behaviorist approaches to AI safety: Peter Voss’s Cognitive AI (buildin
• Flourishing and Obligation - This essay critiques Objectivist ethics from an Axionic perspective, acknowledging its strengths (re
• From Power to Agency - This essay presents the Axionic roadmap for building Reflective Sovereign Agents, inverting conventi
• The Price of Agency - This essay responds to the critique that libertarianism “can’t handle evil” by clarifying what legal
• Politics as Phase Space - This essay argues the left-right political spectrum is a representational failure that compresses au
• You Can’t Align a Hurricane - This accessible essay uses the hurricane-vs-nation analogy to explain why AI agency matters for safe
• The Epstein Fallacy - This essay responds to a critique claiming moral subjectivism fails because it can’t show “sound del