Compared to the millions of species that exist and seem to have existed in the past, it strikes me as strange the apparent rarity of self-awareness. One of the unique factors of humans relating to their success could be argued to stem from our self-awareness as being agents in a world, rather than totally subjective 'theaters of experience'.

I know very little about evolutionary biology, but in the great race of life it feels counter-intuitive that something like self awareness would be selected as preferable to other traits. Is it beneficial? If it wasn't for self awareness, suicide wouldn't exist, for example. Suicide being the most hilariously counter-evolutionary move anyone can make.

Perhaps self-awareness is just more or less an unexpected side consequence of the evolution of other more directly useful features of the brain, but I'm having trouble imagining how it fits in.

What do you think? Why are we self aware, and why is it beneficial over say, a robotic insect-like "mentality". Is it just more or less luck?

I don't know. Either way, its strange how few animals have this 'self-awareness' thing.