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"Print and Ebook Editions of the Book On Consciousness Science and Subjectivity by Bernard J Baars On Sale Now"

UPDATED WORKS ON GLOBAL WORKSPACE THEORY: 1988 - 2013

A coherent effort to organize a large and growing body of scientific evidence about conscious brains.

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Global Workspace Dynamics (GWD) is the most current version of GWT - attempting to take into account the complexities of the living brain. These updated works trace the beginnings of GWT/GWD through the continued rise of brain evidence and psychological understanding.

GWT provides a widely used framework for conscious and unconscious brain events, a set of explicit assumptions that can be tested, as many of them have been.

How can we understand the evidence?

The best answer today is a ‘global workspace architecture,’ first developed by cognitive modeling groups led by Alan Newell and Herbert A. Simon. The term “global workspace” comes from Artificial Intelligence, where it refers to a fleeting memory domain that allows for cooperative problem-solving by large collections of specialized programs. Some brain implications of the theory have been explored.

Global Workspace Theory (GWT) began with this question: “How does a serial, integrated and very limited stream of consciousness emerge from a nervous system that is mostly unconscious, distributed, parallel and of enormous capacity?” Global Workspace (GW) theory provides the most widely used framework to date for our rapidly accumulating body of evidence. It is consistent with our current knowledge, and can be enriched to include other aspects of human experience.

Stan Franklin - LIDA: Cognitive Architecture's Computational Implementation of GWT

Our colleague and friend Stan Franklin and his many co-workers have built on GWT to sketch out a more general theory of cognition.

Dehaene-Changeux Model (DCM): Global Neuronal Workspace is Part of GWT

Stanislas Dehaene and Jean-Pierre Changeux in Paris have developed experimentally testable models and made further testable claims about the brain basis of visual consciousness.

{The sweep and readability of this book are remarkable. Ranging from cell physiology to cognitive states of mind, Baars shows himself to be a master of neurophenomenology from the ground up. In this rich book, On Consciousness: Science & Subjectivity, we are treated to a detailed exploration of the brain processes that undergird our ordinary day to day, moment to moment, ongoing conscious experience. Baars is brilliantly well versed in past writers who have explored human experience, from Aristotle to Marcel Proust, and on to a wide range of contemporary neuroscientists. One has the feeling that the shadow of William James falls across every page. As with James, Baars’ writes in an effortless and deeply thoughtful voice, populated by the kinds of details and reflections that mark a scientist who has spent a lifetime becoming intimately familiar with his topic.

Allan Leslie Combs, PhD

Director & Professor CIIS Center for Consciousness Studies

{Global workspace theory has been a foundational concept in the modern science of consciousness and its more recent neural instantiation has enjoyed widespread and increasing support. This book by Bernard Baars, a pioneer in the field and originator of the theory, represents a landmark effort to comprehensively address, in an accessible way, the various dimensions of the global workspace, from its cognitive architecture to the living brain dynamics through which it is manifest. "On Consciousness" is an indispensable addition to the library of both students and experts who study consciousness.

George A. Mashour, MD, PhD

Director, Center for Consciousness Science Professor of Anesthesiology, Neurosurgery, Neuroscience, and Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

{Over the past several decades, Bernard Baars has launched a new science to understand the human mind and the brain, with a novel approach of looking across scientific and philosophical disciplines to understand the elements that combine to form human consciousness. "On Consciousness: Science and Subjectivity" highlights Baars’ strongly scientific approach combined with his brilliant creativity as he forges new ways of thinking about ancient questions. It is a stunning achievement!

Nicole Gage, PhD

Research Professor, Retired, Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine

{Baars was just waaaay ahead of everyone else in approaching questions concerning consciousness as scientific questions. And he has done vastly more than metaphor-slinging philosophers to make progress on the topic. His preference for testable hypotheses as opposed to dead-end thought-experiments have made a major difference in shifting the topic to a secure knowledge base from which real progress can be made. His work is always insightful, careful, and trustworthy — virtues that have become increasingly elusive in philosophical approaches. This corpus is a stunning achievement.

Patricia Churchland, PhD

UC President's Professor of Philosophy Emerita, UCSD Author of Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain (Norton)

{The works of Bernard Baars collected here in "On Consciousness: Science and Subjectivity" are among the foundational texts of the scientific study of consciousness. Their influence in cognitive science and philosophy of mind is enormous, and their impact on my own thinking has been profound.

Murray Shanahan, PhD

Professor of Cognitive Robotics Dept of Computing, Imperial College London; Senior Research Scientist, DeepMind

{Bernie Baars started, almost single-handedly, the “consciousness revolution” in cognitive psychology over 30 years ago. In this book we can trace, through the re-publication of all the major original sources, the entire path from the first versions of his Global Workspace Theory, published over 30 years ago, to its current state and towards its future prospects as a unified theory of consciousness and the brain. Bernie Baars is a giant on whose shoulders the future science of consciousness will stand.

Antti Revonsuo, PhD

Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Skövde, Sweden Prof of Psychology, University of Turku, Finland; Assoc Editor of Consciousness and Cognition, An Int'l Journal

{This highly readable encyclopedic volume spans some thirty plus years of work by one of the cardinal figures in the modern scientific research on consciousness. It presents an evolving view of the Global Workspace Theory, arguably the most widely accepted scientific theory of consciousness today. Dr. Baars has been a tireless advocate for the importance of consciousness as a topic of serious scientific research. This volume is a befitting testament to his genius.

Zoran Josipovic, PhD

Principal Investigator & Cofounder, Nonduality Institute Research associate at NYU Langone Medical Center and adjunct assistant professor for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology, New York University

{The powerful core of Baars’ model of consciousness is the global workspace, a kind of central bulletin board. It allows scores of specialized mental subsystems (expert but narrow) to contribute to the resolution of novel problems. Baars is careful and thoughtful, and shows constant concern for the testability of his ideas.

Dr. David Galin

Langley Porter Psychiatry Institute, Professor Emeritus UCSF

{Bernard Baars enjoys a dual distinction: He is both one of the pioneers of the cognitive study of consciousness and currently one of its most important contributors. His work is solid, cleanly written, accessible, and based on a mass of compelling empirical findings, deftly integrated. To my knowledge, no one in this field since William James has achieved a better balance of inclusive scope and detailed application.

Bruce Mangan

Senior Research Associate, University of California, Merced (formally) Institute of Cognitive and Brain Studies, University of California, Berkeley

{A clear-eyed, open-minded analysis of the problems of consciousness, and a wide-ranging synthesis of a variety of approaches. For those who want to join the race to model consciousness, this is the starting line.

Daniel C. Dennett, PhD

Co-Director, Center for Cognitive Studies University Professor Austin B Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, Tufts University

{Consciousness will not become acceptable to science without three things: empirical evidence that overcomes the consciousness deniers, a satisfying account of subjectivity, and a global understanding of the mind's staggering complexity. Bernard Baars is perhaps our most important voice on all three fronts, and On Consciousness: Science & Subjectivity raises a high bar for all future exploration in the field.

Deepak Chopra, MD

Author of METAHUMAN (Harmony)

"Portrait of Scott Barry Kaufman for Endorsement of On Consciousness by Bernard Baars"

{What a magnum opus! Bernard Baars fundamentally changed the scientific study of consciousness over 30 years ago and he has done it again in this stimulating update, proposing novel predictions and drawing on the latest research in cognitive science. This book should be on the bookshelf for anyone seriously interested in wrestling with the paradoxes and mysteries of human consciousness.

Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD

Humanistic Psychologist Author of "Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization"

{No scholar understands consciousness as well as Bernard Baars, and few can express this understanding as lucidly. His Global Workspace Theory is practical and elegant, addressing both conscious and unconscious activity. If anyone thinks there is a "hard problem" in this field, they need to read "ON CONSCIOUSNESS" before they make that assumption. Dr. Baars' latest book is a magnificent achievement.

Stanley Krippner, PhD

Professor of Psychology Saybrook University

Global Workspace Theory from soup to nuts.

Global Workspace Theory is a widely used framework for the role of conscious and unconscious experiences in the functioning of the brain, as I first suggested in 1983.

Empirical progress since the 1980s has been spectacular. It therefore seems timely to republish successive stages of evidence and theory of the brain’s global workspace. They cover thirty years during which consciousness re-emerged from decades of neglect. Evidence and ideas are still coming in, but our fundamental evidence is as solid as ever. In traditional scientific fashion, our basic evidence remains stable while ideas continue to evolve.