From being to identity: analysis and synthesis of the self

The experience of being, or having, a self—contained by our bodies and able to act in the world—comes naturally to us as humans, along with a feeling of being the same self from day to day and of seeing others as also being selves. But what is the self, and how is it constituted? In this theme issue, we explore these questions through contemporary analytic approaches, in philosophy, psychology and neuroscience, that seek to understand the human self through conceptual and empirical investigations. Alongside this, we also explore synthetic approaches that attempt to construct a sense of self, or some part thereof, in artefacts such as robots. Our overall aim is to deepen the understanding of self as a foundational aspect of the human condition and explore both theoretical and practical implications of the emerging science of the self. In this introduction, we review the scope and content of the theme issue and argue that these complementary research strands can be seen as converging towards a ‘systems’ view that sees the self as an emergent property of an embodied, dynamical and informational system that continuously distinguishes, regulates and models itself through processes that sustain and explain its own existence. This article is part of the discussion meeting issue ‘From being to identity: analysis and synthesis of the self’.