Consciousness
A Mathematical Treatment of the Global Neuronal Workspace Model
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Beschreibung
"This book brings together the fundamental ideas of information theory and the statistical mechanics of phase transitions within the context of the neurosciences, culture, immunology and socio-psychological studies. Outlined is a program pertaining to a dynamic and semantic extension of current models for the global neuronal workspace as were previously introduced by Baars, Dretske and others. Topics include original applications of rate distortion and large deviations theory, biological renormalization, and retinal tuning as means towards understanding consciousness on the large scale. The overall treatment is concise, has been well thought out, and the mathematical details should be accessible to both students and researchers in the cognitive and life sciences."
- James Glazebrook Ph.D, Eastern Illinois University, USA
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.
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
This book makes formal, detailed application of "the informational turn in philosophy" to the global neuronal workspace (GNW) model of consciousness. It uses an extended statistical model of cognitive process 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. 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.
Autor*in
Rodrick Wallace
Themen in »Consciousness«
behavior cognition information theory language neural networks neuroscience psychology
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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)
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