Autonomy of Self at Criticality: The Perspective from Synthetic Neuro-Robotics

This article investigates the phenomenological aspects of selves in relation to autonomous agents. Through a review of a series of neuro-robotics experiments conducted by the author's group, we elucidate three different aspects of selves, namely, minimal selves, social selves and self-referential selves. Upon integrative discussions of these selves, it is suggested that genuine constructs of "authentic" selves may appear with criticality, which is self-organized in the iterative interplay between regression of past experience and lookahead prediction of future outcomes. It is concluded that genuine autonomy of agents likely originates from genuine autonomy of authentic selves.