Information as Embodied Selection: An Ontological Framework from Attention Agent Theory

Traditional philosophical accounts treat information as static representation, which leaves unresolved problems of semantic grounding, intrinsic value, embodied agency, and phenomenal consciousness. Quantitative approaches such as Shannon’s deliberately bracket meaning and pragmatics. This paper advances Attention Agent Theory (AAT), a process-based ontology that reconceives information as relativized determination produced by embodied selection. Under AAT, a fundamental principle of Universal Attention (UA) endows every system with a selective disposition and resource-allocation capacity that favours states serving its Existence and Order (E&O). Information therefore arises through the value-laden interactions of agents—localized proxies of UA—pursuing E&O and is intrinsically marked by Ontological Valence, an evaluative dimension that unifies semantics and value. In complex agents, AAT predicts that an Attention Copy mechanism realises this valence as qualia, thereby offering a naturalistic account of consciousness. Finally, AAT’s pan-agential (non-panpsychist) process metaphysics yields fresh perspectives on free will via guided randomness, on the quantum-measurement problem, and on naturalised teleology. The framework thus aims to integrate insights across epistemology, philosophy of science, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind.