The companion of observation is action. A theory of self-awareness, i.e. of mental observation, is complemented by a theory of mental action.
[McCarthy 1982] discusses heuristics for coloring maps with four colors. A form of self-awareness is involved. In coloring a map of the United States, the goal of coloring California can be postponed to the very end, because it has only three neighbors and therefore no matter how the rest of the map is colored, there will always be a color for California. Once California is removed from the map, Arizona has only three neighbors. The postponement process can be continued as long as possible. In the case of the US, all states get postponed and then can be colored without backtracking. In general it is often possible to observe that in planning a task, certain subtasks can be postponed to the end. Thus postponement of goals is a mental action that is sometimes useful.
A human-level agent, and even an agent of considerably lower level, has policies. These are creatable, observable both in their structure and in their actions, and changeable.
Useful actions: decide on an intention or a goal. Drop an intention.
Clearly there are many more mental actions and we need axioms describing their effects.