The Degrees of Freedom Principle of Human Economic Behavior: From Dissipative Structures to State Spaces

For extended periods, the application of entropy theory in economics has been impeded by theoretical bottlenecks such as conceptual generalization, ill-defined states, and the scarcity of rigorous quantitative modeling, frequently casting doubt on its logical isomorphism with thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. To resolve these challenges, this paper formalizes the state space of economic systems from a statistical mechanical perspective and develops a series of entropy models—including Economic Entropy and Consumption Entropy—thereby furnishing mathematical tools for researching the Degrees of Freedom Principle (DFP). The DFP, proposed herein as a foundational postulate for social systems, posits that human agents possess an inherent propensity to expand their behavioral degrees of freedom. Building upon this foundation, this paper establishes a theoretical linkage between utility and negative entropy, investigates the generative mechanisms of human behavioral complexity, and uncovers the intrinsic link between micro-agent behavior and macro-social evolution. Thus, from the evolutionary perspective of open dissipative systems subject to thermodynamic constraints, we construct an entropy dynamics framework for economic behavior. This framework offers a unified analysis of individual actions, resource allocation, and economic state space dynamics, thereby mitigating economic theory's exclusive reliance on subjective psychological preference assumptions and providing a novel theoretical bridge connecting micro-agent agency with macro-system complexity.