Consciousness A Mathematical Treatment of the Global Neuronal Workspace Model /

• Main Author: Wallace, Rodrick (Author)
• Corporate Author: SpringerLink (Online service)
• Format: Electronic eBook
• Language: English
• Published: Boston, MA : Springer US, 2005.
• Subjects: Medicine.; Neurosciences.; Philosophy and science.; Manifolds (Mathematics).; Complex manifolds.; Neuropsychology.; Cognitive psychology.; Biomedicine.; Cognitive Psychology.; Philosophy of Science.; Manifolds and Cell Complexes (incl. Diff.Topology).

"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...

Table of Contents:

• Preface
• What is consciousness?- The Global Neuronal Workspace model. An introduction to information theory. The Shannon Coding Theorem. More heuristics: a 'tuning theorem'. The Shannon-McMillan Theorem. The Rate Distortion Theorem. Large deviations
• Fluctuations. The fundamental homology with statistical physics. Cognition as generalized language
• Theory. Two neural network examples. Interacting cognitive modules
• Representations. Language-on-a-network models. 'Biological' phase transitions. Universality class distribution. Universality class tuning. More on behavior far from the critical point. Extending the model. The simplest tunable retina. Tuning the visual retina. The torus and the sphere. Expanding the workspace. Energy efficiency and consciousness. Where does all this lead? Sociocultural context as selection pressure. Autocognitive developmental disorder. Toward a 'General Cognitive Model'. Evading the mereological fallacy
• References. Appendix on coarse graining.