Described is a system for self-organized critical image segmentation. During operation, the system generates a delta pattern from a self-organized critical process. An initial test pattern is then altered based on the delta pattern to generate a new test pattern. The new test pattern is a mask identifying distinct regions in an image. A new energy score is then generated of the new test pattern. The operations of generating the delta pattern and altering the initial test pattern are then repeated until an energy score of the new test pattern is less than an energy score of the initial test pattern. At that point, the initial test pattern is replaced with the new test pattern. Finally, the process is repeated until a termination condition is reached, at which point the new test pattern provides the image segmentation by dividing the image into distinct regions, including a foreground and background.