Anatomy of an Avatar

Anatomy of an Avatar provides a theoretical framework for theories of embodied selfhood anchored in homoestatic regulation, as well as exploring psychiatric disorders involving the self and the empirical application of concepts of free energy minimisation, active inference and predictive processing.

Philip Gerrans is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Adelaide. His work is at the intersection of psychiatry neuroscience and philosophy. He has written on developmental disorders, the emotions, delusions, disorders of self awareness, psychedelic experience and dreams. A unifying theme is the explanatory role of neurocomputational theory.

1: Allostatic Active Inference
2: Material me: Embodiment and self awareness
3: Pain and the avatar
4: Depersonalisation
5: A vessel without a pilot: The Cotard delusion
6: Ego dissolution in psychedelic experience
7: The social self
8: Alienation and identification in addiction
9: Engineering empathy: Emotion and self representation in artificial intelligence