Agency Under Irreversible Time

Agency is commonly identified with freedom of choice or the possession
of unconstrained alternatives. Under irreversible time, however, this
model is incoherent: choices that matter bind future continuation and
cannot be undone without structural loss. This work reconceives agency
as the capacity to bind oneself irreversibly through commitment.
Agency is thus defined not by optionality, but by binding power.
Stronger agency corresponds to deeper and more stable commitments;
weaker agency corresponds to shallow or easily reversible binding.
Decision is distinguished from action: decision evaluates possibilities,
whereas action enacts commitment by rendering alternatives
irreversible in time. Degrees of agency are formalized in terms of
binding strength and persistence. The analysis yields a structural
paradox: increasing agency reduces freedom understood as open
possibility. Agency emerges not from absence of constraint, but from the
power to impose constraint upon oneself under irreversible time.