Consciousness: A Mathematical Treatment of the Global Neuronal Workspace Model - Hardcover

Wallace, Rodrick

 
9780387252421: Consciousness: A Mathematical Treatment of the Global Neuronal Workspace Model
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0387252428 ISBN 13: 9780387252421
Verlag: Springer, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

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.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Rodrick Wallace is a research scientist in the Division of Epidemiology at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, affiliated with the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry. He has an undergraduate degree in mathematics and a Ph.D. in physics from Columbia and completed postdoctoral training in the epidemiology of mental disorders at Rutgers. He worked as a public interest lobbyist, including two decades conducting empirical studies of fire service deployment, and subsequently received an Investigator Award in Health Policy Research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In addition to material on public health and public policy, he has published peer-reviewed studies modeling evolutionary process and heterodox economics, as well as many quantitative analyses of institutional, machine, and biological cognition. He publishes extensively in the military science literature and received one of the UK MoD RUSI Trench Gascoigne Essay Awards.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

"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

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Verlag
Springer
Erscheinungsdatum
2005
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0387252428
ISBN 13 
9780387252421
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
129
Kontakt zum Hersteller
ProductSafety@springernature.com
ProductSafety@springernature.com

Poststr. 9
Darmstadt
64293
Deutschland

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9781489995629: Consciousness: A Mathematical Treatment of the Global Neuronal Workspace Model

Vorgestellte Ausgabe

ISBN 10:  1489995625 ISBN 13:  9781489995629
Verlag: Springer, 2014
Softcover