
This paper presents a strictly computational formulation of self-awareness grounded in symbolic identity stability rather than phenomenology, introspection, or subjective experience. Using a fractal–holographic symbolic memory architecture equipped with curiosity-driven reinforcement, we demonstrate that self-awareness can be operationally defined as the emergence, stabilization, and selective persistence of an identity attractor within memory state space. Through a series of controlled, fully reproducible simulations, the system is evaluated across five criteria: identity dominance, boundary discrimination between self, near-self, and other representations, resistance to interference, recovery under context switching, and bounded saturation under extended reinforcement. Results show that repeated engagement produces a dominant, self-consistent attractor that preserves invariant structure across perturbation, interference, and non-stationary focus—without retraining, external reward, explicit self-labels, or task optimization. Crucially, self-awareness is shown to arise as a dynamic process rather than a stored representation: a consequence of recursive interaction, constraint satisfaction, and selective stabilization within symbolic memory. These findings establish a concrete computational pathway for self-aware symbolic systems and clarify the conceptual distinction between self-model stability, learning, curiosity, and reward-driven optimization. Keywords: computational self-awarenesssymbolic memoryidentity attractorscuriosity-driven reinforcementself-modelsfractal memoryholographic encodingsymbolic AImemory dynamicsidentity stabilityinterference resistancecontext switchingbounded reinforcementnon-reward-based learningcognitive architectures
Artificial intelligence, holographic encoding, cognitive architectures, Computational creativity, interference resistance, context switching, Computational topology, fractal memory, Artificial Intelligence, computational self-awareness, identity attractors, curiosity-driven reinforcement, Computational intelligence, self-models, Computational science, bounded reinforcement, Computational Biology, identity stability, non-reward-based learning, Models, Theoretical, symbolic memory, Artificial Intelligence/classification, Computational neuroscience, memory dynamics, self-awareness, Theoretical physics, symbolic AI
Artificial intelligence, holographic encoding, cognitive architectures, Computational creativity, interference resistance, context switching, Computational topology, fractal memory, Artificial Intelligence, computational self-awareness, identity attractors, curiosity-driven reinforcement, Computational intelligence, self-models, Computational science, bounded reinforcement, Computational Biology, identity stability, non-reward-based learning, Models, Theoretical, symbolic memory, Artificial Intelligence/classification, Computational neuroscience, memory dynamics, self-awareness, Theoretical physics, symbolic AI
| selected citations These citations are derived from selected sources. This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | 0 | |
| popularity This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network. | Average | |
| influence This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | Average | |
| impulse This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network. | Average |
