Anatomy of an Avatar. The virtual self in pathologies of self awareness

This book applies a powerful framework in computational neuroscience (predictive coding and active inference) to explain psychiatric disorders that are characterised by pathologies of self-awareness. It shows how the self is best conceived of as an avatar or model made by the brain for the fundamental purpose of optimising basic bodily function. That avatar integrates and coordinates neurocomputation across the mind. It allows the mind to anticipate and respond to sensory information that bears on the organism’s prospects. The self is thus a model (avatar) made by the brain to allow the body to play the game of life. When activity in circuitry that implements the avatar is compromised a variety of psychiatric disorders result.

Anatomy of an Avatar provides a theoretical framework for theories of embodied selfhood anchored in homoestatic regulation, as well as exploring psychiatric disorders involving the self and the empirical application of concepts of free energy minimisation, active inference and predictive processing. The book also includes key case studies in the cognitive neuropsychiatry of self awareness and test cases for philosophical concepts of self representation and the experience of self awareness.

The book will be essential reading for those in the fields of psychology and consciousness, psychiatry, and philosophy.

• Provides a theoretical framework for theories of embodied selfhood anchored in homoestatic regulation
• Presents an empirical application of concepts of free energy minimisation, active inference and predictive coding
• Includes test cases for philosophical concepts of self representation and the experience of self awareness, and case studies in the cognitive neuropsychiatry of self awareness

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction: Anatomy of an avatar
1:Interoceptive active inference
2:Material me: Embodiment and self awareness
3:Pain and the avatar
4:Depersonalization disorder
5:A vessel without a pilot: Cotard delusion
6:Ego dissolution in psychedelic experience
7:The social self
8:Alienation and identification in addiction
9:Engineering empathy: Emotion and self representation in artificial intelligence