Probability as a Physical Motive

Abstract: Recent theoretical progress in nonequilibrium thermodynamics, linking thephysical principle of Maximum Entropy Production (“MEP”) to the information-theoretical“MaxEnt” principle of scientific inference, together with conjectures from theoreticalphysics that there may be no fundamental causal laws but only probabilities for physicalprocesses, and from evolutionary theory that biological systems expand “the adjacentpossible” as rapidly as possible, all lend credence to the proposition that probability shouldbe recognized as a fundamental physical motive. It is further proposed that spatial order andtemporal order are two aspects of the same thing, and that this is the essence of the secondlaw of thermodynamics.