The Global Workspace Theory
Bernard J. Baars, Adam Alonzi · 2018
HEARSAY was one of the first success stories for the new concept of parallel-distributed architectures, now often called "crowdsourcing" or "swarm computing." The most important point is the surprising effectiveness of expert crowds using global workspace (GW)-mediated signaling, when none of the individual experts could solve the posted problem by themselves. A new wave of neuroscience evidence shows that the extended cortex – neo, paleo, and thalamus – can support a dynamic, mobile, context-sensitive and adaptive GW function. In 1988, GW theory suggested that "global broadcasting" might be one property of conscious events. The main use of a GW system is to solve problems which any single "expert" knowledge source cannot solve by itself – problems whose solutions are underdetermined. Human beings encounter such problems in any domain that is novel, degraded, or ambiguous. Conscious learning is often involved in decomposing such complex signal environments.