The DOI matches its Crossref record; 143 of the 145 references it cites were found in a registry or an index, and 1 are not checked yet.
Minimal self-models and the free energy principle.
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The term "minimal phenomenal selfhood" (MPS) describes the basic, pre-reflective experience of being a self (Blanke and Metzinger, 2009). Theoretical accounts of the minimal self have long recognized the importance and the ambivalence of the body as both part of the physical world, and the enabling condition for being in this world (Gallagher, 2005a; Grafton, 2009). A recent account of MPS (Metzinger, 2004a) centers on the consideration that minimal selfhood emerges as the result of basic self-modeling mechanisms, thereby being founded on pre-reflective bodily processes. The free energy principle (FEP; Friston, 2010) is a novel unified theory of cortical function built upon the imperative that self-organizing systems entail hierarchical generative models of the causes of their sensory input, which are optimized by minimizing free energy as an approximation of the log-likelihood of the model. The implementation of the FEP via predictive coding mechanisms and in particular the active inference principle emphasizes the role of embodiment for predictive self-modeling, which has been appreciated in recent publications. In this review, we provide an overview of these conceptions and illustrate thereby the potential power of the FEP in explaining the mechanisms underlying minimal selfhood and its key constituents, multisensory integration, interoception, agency, perspective, and the experience of mineness. We conclude that the conceptualization of MPS can be well mapped onto a hierarchical generative model furnished by the FEP and may constitute the basis for higher-level, cognitive forms of self-referral, as well as the understanding of other minds.
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“AIF agents aim to understand the underlying dynamics of the agent–environment coupling and model themselves as the ‘cause’ of changes to their own sensory states, developing their own sense of agency through active engagement and intervention onto the world”
From Active inference goes to school: the importance of active learning in the age of large language models (2024) · cites this paper as [55]
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“In order to regulate the body, interoception models the hidden causes of allostatic fluctuations by attributing them to a unified entity”
From Pain Asymbolia as Depersonalization for Pain Experience. An Interoceptive Active Inference Account (2020) · cites this paper as Limanowski and Blankenburg, 2013
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“prediction error is best minimized over the long term by attributing internally generated interoceptive sensations to a stable, unified entity, a self”
From Pain Asymbolia as Depersonalization for Pain Experience. An Interoceptive Active Inference Account (2020) · cites this paper as Limanowski and Blankenburg, 2013
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“In this putative classification, interoception plays a key role in structuring experiences of ‘being and having a body’ (i.e. embodied selfhood) and may also shape selfhood at other, hierarchically higher levels.”
From Active interoceptive inference and the emotional brain (2016) · cites this paper as [60]
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“In the last couple of years, several proposals of ‘minimal’ self-model implementations under a predictive coding scheme have been advanced (Seth, 2013; Limanowski and Blankenburg, 2013; Limanowski, 2014; Apps and Tsakiris, 2014; Ishida et al., 2015; Allen and Friston, 2016). These proposals have in common that they treat the ‘self’ as a hypothesis within the HGM, which tries to maximize its”
From 'Seeing the Dark': Grounding Phenomenal Transparency and Opacity in Precision Estimation for Active Inference (2018) · cites this paper as Limanowski and Blankenburg, 2013
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Metadata
- Authors
- Limanowski, J., & Blankenburg, F.
- Affiliations
- Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Limanowski, Jakub
- Venue
- Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2013
- Volume
- 7
- Pages
- 547-547
- ISSN
- 1662-5161 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3770917
- OpenAlex
- W2148544865
- Cited by
- 263
- References
- 145
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 29 · 2023: 44 · 2022: 17 · 2021: 30 · 2020: 22 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 4
- FWCI
- 0.99
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- edoc Publication server (Humboldt University of Berlin) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Refubium (Universitätsbibliothek der Freien Universität Berlin) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Universitätsbibliothek der FU Berlin Hochschulschriftenstelle u. Dokumentenserver (cc-by)
- Funders
- Wellcome Trust (088130)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Embodied and Extended Cognition
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Free Will and Agency
- Keywords
- free energy principle, active inference, embodiment, multisensory integration, interoception, agency, perspective taking, mineness, self-referral, other minds, hierarchical generative models
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