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Consciousness. What is consciousness? Where does consciousness happen? How does consciousness happen?. What is Consciousness?. Awareness of the environment Awareness of internal mental events/states . Where Does Consciousness Happen?.
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Consciousness • What is consciousness? • Where does consciousness happen? • How does consciousness happen?
What is Consciousness? • Awareness of the environment • Awareness of internal mental events/states
Where Does Consciousness Happen? • Descartes (1600’s): the body and soul interact through the pineal gland • Damasio (1999): consciousness is the self in the act of knowing - the thalamus helps to relate signals across brain areas (early sensory and higher-order cortices)
Global Workspace Theory(Baars, 1996) • Consciousness works by “broadcasting” information across brain areas • Make information simultaneously available to many areas so that the correct decisions can be made to coordinate thinking
Global Workspace Theory • Expert Processors are specialized, unconscious processors • Contexts are groups of expert processors that work together; guide and constrain global messages but are not conscious • Global Workspace is the ability to broadcast the information to the entire system
Evolutionary Psychology • What is the function of consciousness? • How could consciousness have evolved?