The ability to make decisions is seen as one of the most important intellectual abilities for humans and animals. Now Japanese scientists claim that an inanimate objects such as an iron bar is capable of gathering information about its surroundings to make a'decision' too. They believe their study has implications for understanding how lower life forms function. Japanese scientists claim that inanimate objects such as an iron bar are capable of gathering information about their surroundings to make a decision. Song-Ju Kim, of National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, told Phys.org: 'The most important implication that we wish to claim is that the proposed scheme will provide a new perspective for understanding the information-processing principles of certain lower forms of life.

We demonstrate that any physical object, as long as its volume is conserved when coupled with suitable operations, provides a sophisticated decision-making capability. We consider the problem of finding, as accurately and quickly as possible, the most profitable option from a set of options that gives stochastic rewards. These decisions are made as dictated by a physical object, which is moved in a manner similar to the fluctuations of a rigid body in a tug-of-war game. Our analytical calculations validate statistical reasons why our method exhibits higher efficiency than conventional algorithms. The computing principles in modern digital paradigms have been designed to be dissociated from the underlying physics of natural phenomena [1].