Why know myself? Flexible behaviour and the need for self-modelling: Poster

2021

In this paper I argue that some forms of the capacity for behavioural flexibility entail a specific kind of representation, a self-model. This means that systems with that capacity, among them human beings, must have self-models. In its basic form, the capacity for behavioural flexibility allows a system to respond to the same sensory stimulus differentially, depending on the values of parameters with which it represents the world. On seeing a street, I might cycle straight ahead or take a sharp turn left – depending on whether I represent it to blocked off just around the corner. More advanced forms expand on this. Self-models are a form of self-representation in which states are represent…

Why know myself? Flexible behaviour and the need for self-modelling: Oral presentation

2021