Consciousness, cognition, and the hierarchy of context: expanding the global neuronal workspace

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Abstract

Adapting Dretske's approach on the necessary conditions for mental process, we apply a communication theory analysis of interacting cognitive biological and social modules to the global neuronal workspace. Using an obvious canonical homology with statistical physics, the method, when iterated, generates a fluctuating dynamic threshold recognizably similar to a phase transition in a physical system, but constrained to a manifold/atlas structure analogous to a tunable retina. The resulting 'General Cognitive Model' can be extended in a straightforward manner to include the effects of psychosocial stress, culture, or other cognitive modules which constitute a structured, embedding, hierarchy of contextual constraints acting at a slower rate than neuronal function itself. This produces an empirically-testable 'bipsychosociocultural' treatment of individual consciousness that, while otherwise remarkably similar to the standard development, meets compelling philosophical and other objections to brain-only descriptions.

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• Consciousness, cognition, and the hierarchy of context: extending the global neuronal workspace model. (deposited 09 Feb 2004)
  • Consciousness, cognition, and the hierarchy of context: expanding the global neuronal workspace. (deposited 14 Jun 2004) [Currently Displayed]