| Consciousness: A Mathematical Treatment of the Global Neuronal Workspace Model 2005 Edition Contributor(s): Wallace, Rodrick (Author) |
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ISBN: 0387252428 ISBN-13: 9780387252421 Publisher: Springer OUR PRICE: $52.24 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: April 2005 Annotation: This book makes formal, detailed, application of what Adams has described as 'the informational turn in philosophy' to the global neuronal workspace (GNW) model of consciousness. It uses an extended statistical model of cognitive process, based on the Shannon-McMillan Theorem and its corollaries, to incorporate the effects of embedding physiological, social, and cultural contextual constraints which operate more slowly than the workspace itself, but severely limit the possible realms available to that workspace, and hence to consciousness itself. The resulting 'biopsychosociocultural' treatment directly addresses criticisms of brain-only models of consciousness which have been raised in cultural psychology and philosophy, while remaining true to the current neuroscience perspective. This is the first formal, comprehensive, and reasonably rigorous, mathematical treatment of the GNW and is the only one to include the effects of embedding contexts in a 'natural' manner. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Medical | Neuroscience - Psychology | Cognitive Psychology & Cognition - Psychology | Neuropsychology |
| Dewey: 153 |
| LCCN: 2005041620 |
| Physical Information: 0.51" H x 6.38" W x 9.6" (0.80 lbs) 116 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: 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. |