What is agency?

Something is an agent when predicting it as one works better than predicting it as a mechanism — the intentional stance.

Made agency a lens rather than an essence, and made 'does it really want?' a question about explanatory strategies.

The Intentional Stance1987

The intentional stance turns out to be literally true further down than Dennett assumed. A cell is a tiny agent with goals it defends; agency is a measurable gradient of competence, not just a story we find it useful to tell.

Moved agency from a predictive stance to an empirical quantity — set-points, error-correction, and the scale of goals a system can pursue, measurable from cells upward.

Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere (TAME)2022