Tag Archives: Brain

The seven attributes of minimal consciousness

Posted on April 5, 2020 by

I’m still working my way through Simona Ginsburg and Eva Jablonka’s tome: The Evolution of the Sensitive Soul.  This is the second post of a series on their book.  I’m actually on the last chapter, but that last chapter is … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

The sensitive soul and the rational soul

Posted on March 21, 2020 by

I think examining the evolution of consciousness in animals helps shed light on it in humans.  Admittedly, there are difficulties.  Animals can’t self report using language, which limits just how much of their experience can be garnered from experiments.  Still, … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , | 26 Comments

The response schema

Posted on March 4, 2020 by

Several months ago Michael Graziano, and colleagues, attempted a synthesis of three families of scientific theories of consciousness: global workspace theory (GWT), higher order theory (HOT), and his own attention schema theory (AST). A quick (crudely simplistic) reminder: GWT posits … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , | 42 Comments

Islands of awareness

Posted on February 20, 2020 by

(Warning: neuroscience weeds) An interesting paper by Tim Bayne, Anil Seth, and Marcello Massimi, which came up in my Twitter stream today, asks whether there can be islands of awareness. Ordinary consciousness involves ongoing interaction with the environment, receiving sensory … Continue reading →

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Recurrent processing theory and the function of consciousness

Posted on January 25, 2020 by

Victor Lamme’s recurrent processing theory (RPT) remains on the short list of theories considered plausible by the consciousness science community.  It’s something of a dark horse candidate, without the support of global workspace theory (GWT) or integrated information theory (IIT), … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , | 49 Comments

Is there a conscious perception finish line?

Posted on January 19, 2020 by

Global workspace theory (GWT) is the proposition that consciousness is composed of contents broadcast throughout the brain.  Various specialty processes compete for the limited capacity of the broadcasting mechanisms, to have their content broadcast to the all the other specialty … Continue reading →

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For animal consciousness, is there a fact of the matter?

Posted on January 18, 2020 by

Peter Carruthers has been blogging this week on the thesis of his new book, Human and Animal Minds: The Consciousness Question Laid to Rest.  I mentioned Carruthers’ book in my post on global workspace theory (GWT), but didn’t get into … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , | 74 Comments

Peter Carruthers on the problems of consciousness

Posted on January 13, 2020 by

Peter Carruthers is posting this week at The Brains Blog on his new book, Human and Animal Minds, which I mentioned in my post on global workspace theory.  His first post focuses on two issues: latent dualism and terminological confusion. … Continue reading →

Posted in Zeitgeist | Tagged , , , , , | 17 Comments

The battle between integration and workspace will take a while

Posted on January 11, 2020 by

Well, I find this a bit disappointing.  I was hoping that the contest between global workspace theory (GWT) and integrated information theory (IIT) would be announced sometime this year.  Apparently, I’m going to have to wait awhile: Pitts describes the … Continue reading →

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Daniel Dennett on consciousness and the hard question

Posted on January 5, 2020 by

This interview is pretty much classic Daniel Dennett.  He starts off pointing out that introspection is unreliable, that our beliefs about our inner experience are what need to be explained, not necessarily what the beliefs purport to be reality.  He … Continue reading →

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