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p. 343. Time and spacelocked

  • Susan Blackmore


‘Time and space’ discusses a range of experiments and theories of consciousness including neuroscientist Benjamin Libet’s ‘half second lag’ and the ‘cutaneous rabbit’ illusion, dualism, ‘higher-order thought’, varieties of global workspace theory (GWT; proposed by psychologist Bernard Baars in the 1980s), and Daniel Dennett’s ‘multiple drafts theory’. GWTs have been popular and influential, but can be interpreted in different ways: items ‘become conscious’ by virtue of being broadcast, and a previously unconscious item becomes a subjective experience; or nothing changes and the broadcast is all there is. There is obviously something we call ‘consciousness’ that demands explanation. But is it really the unified stream of experiences we think it is?


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