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.
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