ABSTRACT
At the most basic level, the ability to perceive self, to envision one's physical essence, actions and even thoughts as distinctive from one's surroundings affords humans (and other organisms) the most fundamental and important of all life-capabilities: The ability to distinguish one's current state or situation relative to the environment; to determine whether everything is currently satisfactory and in-balance or out-of-balance and thus unsatisfactory. Thousands of years of thinking about human self-perception have resulted in some deep insights, but surprisingly little consensus. Despite millennia of speculation, serious empirical investigation on the nature of self-perception is actually quite recent, in its broadest outline only a little more than a hundred years old. Favored signals are always the ones that are perceived as best/most critically fulfilling self-related needs. For example, as Teresa entered the town of Altar, her brain was screaming DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! And danger is a signal that human minds have evolved to pay attention to.
