Opinion
Being a Beast Machine: The Somatic Basis of Selfhood

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Highlights

We conceptualise experiences of embodied selfhood in terms of control-oriented predictive regulation (allostasis) of physiological states.

We account for distinctive phenomenological aspects of embodied selfhood, including its (partly) non-object-like nature and its subjective stability over time.

We explain predictive perception as a generalisation from a fundamental biological imperative to maintain physiological integrity: to stay alive.

We bring together several cognitive science traditions, including predictive processing, perceptual control theory, cybernetics, the free energy principle, and sensorimotor contingency theory.

We show how perception of the world around us, and of ourselves within it, happens with, through, and because of our living bodies.

We draw implications for developmental psychology and identify open questions in psychiatry and artificial intelligence.

Modern psychology has long focused on the body as the basis of the self. Recently, predictive processing accounts of interoception (perception of the body ‘from within’) have become influential in accounting for experiences of body ownership and emotion. Here, we describe embodied selfhood in terms of ‘instrumental interoceptive inference’ that emphasises allostatic regulation and physiological integrity. We apply this approach to the distinctive phenomenology of embodied selfhood, accounting for its non-object-like character and subjective stability over time. Our perspective has implications for the development of selfhood and illuminates longstanding debates about relations between life and mind, implying, contrary to Descartes, that experiences of embodied selfhood arise because of, and not in spite of, our nature as ‘beast machines’.

Section snippets

Being Somebody

What does it mean to be a ‘self’? While some have argued that there may be no ‘thing’ that is a self [1], experiences of selfhood are among the most pervasive aspects of human consciousness. Perceptions of the external world come and go, but it is their relation to the experience of ‘being an experiencing subject’ that gives these perceptions meaning, value, and emotional relevance. How perceptual experiences of ‘being a self’ are constructed is therefore a key question for cognitive science.

Predictive Processing and Interoceptive Inference

Taking the body as the basis of selfhood highlights the importance of interoceptive sensory channels that convey information about the global physiological condition of the body 14, 24. Recently, interoception has been conceptualised within the framework of predictive processing 8, 16, 17, 25, 26. Just like predictive processing models of vision [27], models of interoceptive inference propose that interoceptive experiences result from probabilistic inference about the causes of viscerosensory

From Essential Variables to Instrumental (Control-Oriented) Inference

All living organisms attempt to maintain their physiological integrity in the face of danger and opportunity. Arguably, this is the basic evolutionary and functional imperative for having a brain. In the 1950s the cybernetician W. Ross Ashby formalised this idea in terms of second-order homeostasis of essential variables. In physiological settings, these variables correspond to quantities such as blood pressure, heart rate, blood sugar levels, and the like that must remain within tight bounds

The Phenomenology of Being a Body

When considering the phenomenology of selfhood, it is not enough to say that emotional and self-related experiences are the way they are (and are different to, for example, visual experiences) because they emphasise predictions about interoceptive (rather than visual) signals. Instead, it is helpful to consider the nature of predictions associated with interoceptive inference, especially their control-oriented (instrumental) bias.

Concluding Remarks and Future Perspectives

Experiences of selfhood range from basic experiences of being and having a body, up to reflective self-awareness and the social self 8, 64 (Box 4). We have proposed that these experiences are grounded in processes of instrumental (control-oriented) interoceptive inference that underpin allostatic regulation of physiological essential variables. This perspective draws together perceptual inference schemes, such as predictive processing and active inference, with sensorimotor theory 42, 65 and

Acknowledgments

A.K.S. is grateful for support to the Dr Mortimer and Theresa Sackler Foundation that supports the work of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science and to the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Azrieli Programme on Brain, Mind, and Consciousness. M.T. is supported by the European Research Council Consolidator grant (ERC-2016-CoG-724537) under the FP7 for the INtheSELF project and by the NOMIS Foundation Distinguished Scientist Award. The authors are grateful to Hugo Critchley,

Glossary

Active inference
an extension of predictive processing, and part of the free energy principle, that says that agents can suppress prediction errors by performing actions to bring about sensory states in line with predictions 28, 32, 67.
Allostasis
a form of regulation that emphasises the process of achieving stability through change, for example, by the dynamic and anticipatory allocation of resources to ensure the stability of core regulatory targets. The precise relationship between allostasis

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