Dual second law (global vs local)
- Global (objective): in closed systems, entropy does not decrease.
- Local (process/agent): open systems export entropy and build structure; agents reduce uncertainty using free‑energy flows.
Free‑energy cascades
Photon → chemical → neural/computational → artefact/organizational:
- Track energy dissipation and information gain at each stage.
- Expect increasing structure under global constraints.
Agent budgets (energy, time, bandwidth, memory)
- Make budgets explicit; include costs in metrics.
- Analyze Pareto fronts of cost ↔ benefit.
Measurements and protocols
- Predictive log‑loss reductions vs energy spent.
- Mutual information harvested vs control bits used.
- Maxwell‑demon‑like setups with explicit budget caps.
Further reading: Operational Criteria, Research Directions (thermo tracks), Glossary.