  We discuss the possibility of freedom of action in embodied systems that are,
with no exception and at all scales of their body, subject to physical law. We
relate the discussion to a model of an artificial agent that exhibits a
primitive notion of creativity and freedom in dealing with its environment,
which is part of a recently introduced scheme of information processing called
projective simulation. This provides an explicit proposal on how we can
reconcile our understanding of universal physical law with the idea that higher
biological entities can acquire a notion of freedom that allows them to
increasingly detach themselves from a strict causal embedding into the
surrounding world.

Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems;Physics and Society