Evolutionary Story of Agency

Álvaro Moreno is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy of Science of the University of Basque Country and he is currently Associate Researcher at the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC). His research activities have been developed in the areas of Philosophy of Biology, Artificial Life, Complex Systems and Philosophy of Cognitive Science. He has developed, together with numerous collaborators, a distinctive interdisciplinary research line on Biological Autonomy, which bridges philosophy and science, which has materialized in the creation of the IAS–Research Centre for Life, Mind & Society, in San Sebastian (Spain). He is currently leading a subproject on the Origin and Evolution Agency, within the wider research Project “Agency, Directionality, and Function: Foundations for a Science of Purpose“, funded by the John Templeton Foundation.Juli Peretó is Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (University of Valencia) and researcher at Institute for IntegrativeSystems Biology I2SysBio (UV-CSIC), his focus spans the evolution of metabolism, minimal cell concept, bioprospection of inhospitable habitats, and the history of ideas on the natural origin and the artificial synthesis of life. Teaching metabolism with an evolutionary perspective, he coordinated an Erasmus Intensive Program “Origin, Evolution and Future of the Biosphere” and held leadership roles in the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life ISSOL. Elected Fellow of ISSOL, he co-founded the biotech spin-off Darwin Bioprospecting Excellence and contributed to books on synthetic biology, origins of life and scientific gastronomy. His latest pursuit blends evolutionary biology with gastronomy.

• 1 Introduction.- 2 Minimal Agents and the Emergence of Life.- 3 A Big Bang of Agency: The Prokaryotic Way of Life.- 4 Eukaryotic Agency: Looking for the Path of Agency Complexification.- 5 Multicellular Agents: the Challenge of Combining Body Organization and Behavior.- 6 Metazoans: An Explosion of Agency.- 7 Epilogue.