Darpa’s latest venture, called “Physical Intelligence” (PI) intends to prove mathematically that all brain activities — reasoning, emoting, processing sights and smells — derive from physical mechanisms, acting according to the principles of “thermodynamics in open systems.”

They’re asking for “abiotic, self-organizing electronic and chemical systems” that display the PI principles. Darpa wants to re-envision how thought works — and then design computers whose thought processes are governed by the same laws as our own.