Séminaire ayant lieu dans le cadre du Doctorat en informatique cognitive, en alliance avec le centre de recherche CRIA  

Titre : Machine Consciousness Is Only a Metaphor  

Bernard J. BAARS

Jeudi le 8 septembre 2022

10h30

Vidéoconférence - zoom  : https://uqam.zoom.us/j/88481835073

Résumé

Machine metaphors are often used in science, but metaphors should never be confused with reality. All cultures have metaphors for mind, including Plato’s Cave, Aristotle’s common sense and Arjuna’s chariot. No one should confuse these metaphors with real consciousness because the implications of that confusion are notoriously dangerous. Anthropology tells us that all human conflicts start with dehumanizing words. Machine consciousness sounds innocent, but the implications are not. The conscious brain is a biological emergent, with endless psychological and cultural ripples. We are only beginning to rediscover the empirical study of the conscious brain in the sciences. Undisciplined speculation has previously destroyed this field. Let’s not do it again.

Biographie 

Bernard J. Baars, PhD is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Center for the Future Mind, Florida Atlantic University and is best known as the originator of the Global Workspace Theory (GWT) of conscious perception and cognition. After its initial development, GWT was applied to  the cortico-thalamic system, a highly conserved mammalian structure, with analogs in other animal species. Other scientists have developed a “GWT family” of theories. Baars received the 2019 Hermann von Helmholtz Life Contribution Award from the International Neural Network Society, which “recognizes work in perception proven to be paradigm changing and long-lasting.”  Baars, B., Franklin, S., & Ramsøy, T. (2013). Global Workspace Dynamics: Cortical “Binding and Propagation” Enables Conscious Contents. Frontiers in Psychology, 4.

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00200https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00200 

Deco, G., Vidaurre, D. & Kringelbach, M.L. Revisiting the global workspace orchestrating the hierarchical organization of the human brain. Nat Hum Behav 5, 497–511 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-01003-6