  The world runs on communicated sequences of symbols, e.g. numerals. Examining
both engineered and natural communications networks reveals an unsuspected
order that depends on contact with an unpredictable entity. This order has
three roots. The first is a proof within quantum theory that no evidence can
ever determine its explanation, so that an agent choosing an explanation must
do so unpredictably. The second root is the showing that clocks that step
computers do not "tell time" but serve as self-adjusting symbol-handling agents
that regulate "logically synchronized" motion in response to unpredictable
disturbances. Such a clock-agent has a certain independence as well as the
capacity to communicate via unpredictable symbols with other clock-agents and
to adjust its own tick rate in response to that communication. The third root
is the noticing of unpredictable symbol exchange in natural systems, including
the transmission of symbols found in molecular biology. We introduce a
symbol-handling agent as a role played in some cases by a person, for example a
physicist who chooses an explanation of given experimental outcomes, and in
other cases by some other biological entity, and in still other cases by an
inanimate device, such as a computer-based detector used in physical
measurements. While we forbear to try to explain the propensity of agents at
all levels from cells to civilizations to form and operate networks of
logically synchronized symbol-handling agents, we point to this propensity as
an overlooked cosmic order, an order structured by the unpredictability ensuing
from the proof. Appreciating the cosmic order leads to a conception of agency
that replaces volition by unpredictability and re-conceives the notion of
objectivity in a way that makes a place for agency in the world as described by
physics. Some specific implications for physics are outlined.
