Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Monday, June 22, 2009
What is the 'Global Workspace Theory' of consciousness?
'Global Workspace Theory' (GWT) was proposed by Bernard Baars in 1988. Basically GWT says that what we mean by 'consciousness' can be explained by a 'theatre' metaphor. Imagine the stage to represent you mind. On the stage their are lots of actors (cf. neurons connecting) but you can't see them because there are no lights on in the theatre. Now imagine that someone flips the spotlight switch on. Now an actor is clearly visible but the rest of the actors are still invisible. The spotlight is a metaphor for 'directed attention'.
References:
- Conversations on Consciousness by Susan Blackmore (2007).
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