The brain is a global workspace
202306071455
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Tags: the brain is inside-out the brain Global Workspace Theory Brain hierarchy
Important
If the brain was not hierarchically organized, it would be in detailed balance and processes in the brain would be fully reversible. In other words, production entropy would be equal to zero. In this case, the system would be dead. In a hierarchically organized system without detailed balance, production entropy is always greater than zero.
In other words, the brain is fundamentally hierarchically organized. This cannot be debated. What can be debated is the scale on which it is hierarchical — micro/meso/macro scale, temporal/spatial, etc. Kringelbach2023
The existence of a global workspace is debated, and importantly does not imply a true theory of consciousness. However, previous research points toward a ‘functional rich club’ that may constitute the global workspace Deco2021. Regardless, the non-existence of a global workspace does not imply the absence of hierarchical organization — this is a necessary requirement of a living system.
Stanislas Dehaene and others have proposed that the brain is hierarchically organized, such that a group of brain regions (often called the global workspace) collaborate to orchestrate optimal brain communication & computation Baars1989 Dehaene1998 Deco2021 Kringelbach2023
Different conditions reconfigure the functional hierarchy of the brain, where the PFC temporarily overrides the global workspace for specific problems Fuster2015 Fuster2021 Kringelbach2023
History of hierarchical processing
psychedelics flatten the brain’s hierarchy
non-wakeful states have a flattened hierarchy
self-organizing systems are hierarchical