Bernard Baars talks to Jim about some of the key ideas in his book, On Consciousness: Science & Subjectivity...

Bernard Baars talks to Jim about some of the key ideas in his book, On Consciousness: Science & Subjectivity. They start by covering some of the history of the scientific study of consciousness & its taboo reputation in science, the philosopher's zombie, and the limits of philosophy to study consciousness. They then go into some of the specifics of Bernards global workspace theory (GWT): limited capacity, conscious content & perceived objects, the aspects of the theater metaphor, dynamics of attention, animal consciousness, global access, contrastive analysis, unconscious & conscious interaction, upcoming integrated information theory (IIT) vs. GWT experimentation, and much more.

Episode Transcript

Mentions & Recommendations

Bernard's book, On Consciousness

Bernard on Twitter

JRS: EP105 Christof Koch on Consciousness

JRS: EP97 Emery Brown on Consciousness & Anesthesia

Consciousness Explained by Dan Dennett

The Mystery Of Consciousness by John Searle

Bernard Baars is Co-founder & Editor in Chief of the Society for MindBrain Sciences, a former Senior Fellow in Theoretical Neurobiology at The Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, CA., and currently an Affiliated Fellow there. He is best known as the originator of the global workspace theory, a theory of human cognitive architecture and consciousness. He is recipient of the 2019 Hermann von Helmholtz Life Contribution Award by the International Neural Network Society recognizing work in perception proven to be paradigm changing and long lasting.