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Consciousness

A Mathematical Treatment of the Global Neuronal Workspace Model

  • Book
  • © 2005

Overview

Authors:
  1. Rodrick Wallace

    1. Epidemiology of Mental Disorders Research Department, New York Psychiatric Institute, New York

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  • The first formal, comprehensive, and reasonably rigorous, mathematical treatment of the GNW.

  • It is the only to include the effects of embedding contexts in a 'natural' manner, evading accusations of the mereological fallacy by the philosophers, and of irrelevance by the cultural psychologists

  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiii
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  2. What is Consciousness?

    Pages 1-6

  3. Information Theory

    Pages 7-28

  4. Cognition as Generalized Language

    Pages 29-38

  5. The Fluctuating Dynamic Threshold

    Pages 39-58

  6. Extending the Model

    Pages 59-82

  7. Where Does all This Lead?

    Pages 83-101

  8. References

    Pages 103-113

  9. Back Matter

    Pages 115-116
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Keywords

About this book

This book is not an intellectual history or popular summary of recent work on consciousness in humans. Bernard Baars (1988), Edelman and Tononi (2000), and many others, have written such, and done it well indeed. This book, rather, brings the powerful analytic machinery of communication theory to bear on the Global Neuronal Workspace (GNW) model of consciousness which Baars introduced, and does so in a formal mathematical manner. It is not the first such attempt. The philospher Fred Dretske (1981), indep- dent of Baars, long ago outlined how information theory might illuminate the understanding of mind. Adapting his approach on the necessary conditions for mental process, we apply a previously-developed information theory analysis of interacting cognitive biological and social modules to Baars' GNW, which has become the principal candidate for a 'standard model' of consciousness. Invoking an obvious canonical homology with statistical physics, the method, when iterated in the spirit of the Hierarchical Linear Model of regression theory, generates a fluctuating dynamic threshold for consciousness which is similar to a tunable phase transition in a physical system. The phenomenon is, however, constrained to a manifold/atlas structure analogous to a retina; an adaptable Rate Distortion manifold, whose 'topology', in a large sense, reflects the hierarchy of embedding constraints acting on consciousness. This view greatly extends what Baars has characterized as 'contexts.

Reviews

From the reviews:

"To formulate a serious, clear-cut and transparent formal framework for cognitive neuroscience is a challenge … . I think that Wallace’s book presents an appreciable step in the right direction. … Beyond references that are necessary for basic elements of his work, the author has put together additional interesting reading material … . It is a book that can unfold its potential to well-educated readers with genuinely interdisciplinary ambitions … ." (Harald Atmanspacher, Acta Biotheoretica, Vol. 54, 2006)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Epidemiology of Mental Disorders Research Department, New York Psychiatric Institute, New York

    Rodrick Wallace

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