Agency, Goal-Directed Behavior, and Part-Whole Relationships in Biological Systems

Area of Science:

• Systems Biology
• Theoretical Biology
• Biophysics

Background:

• Characterizing agency and goal-directed behavior in biological systems is complex.
• Existing frameworks often struggle to quantify emergent properties across different biological scales.
• Understanding the relationship between system parts and wholes is crucial for defining biological agency.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a minimal, concrete notion of agency and goal-directed behavior for biological systems.
• To explore how system agency can be quantified and emerge as more than the sum of its parts.
• To provide a framework for analyzing agency in cells, organisms, and other biological scales.

Main Methods:

• Integrating concepts from dynamical systems, combinatorial problem-solving, and connectionist learning.
• Quantifying system problem-solving competency in resolving internal 'frustrations' between parts.
• Defining goal-directed behavior through delayed gratification and long-term gain optimization.

Main Results:

• Developed a quantifiable perspective on agency applicable to diverse biological scales.
• Demonstrated how system-level agency can emerge from the organization and interaction of parts.
• Showcased how acquired, distributed systemic knowledge contributes to agency without explicit system-level reward functions.

Conclusions:

• The proposed framework offers a concrete, quantifiable approach to biological agency.
• Emergent agency in biological systems can be understood through problem-solving competency and delayed gratification.
• This perspective reconciles system-level agency with the dependence on the organization of individual parts.