# Global Workspace Theory **Domain:** Consciousness / Cognitive Architecture **Doc Type:** Theory Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition **Global Workspace Theory (GWT)** models conscious access as a process in which selected information becomes globally available to many specialized cognitive systems. Local processors operate in parallel; attention permits some contents to be broadcast across the wider architecture. ## Distributed-System Analogy Dashboards, common operational pictures, feeds and alerting systems perform a superficially similar function: they compress many local signals into a limited set of globally available contents. This makes GWT a useful analogy for attention and coordination inside a distributed machine system. The analogy is not evidence that a social platform or operational network is conscious. A broadcast architecture may be necessary under some theories without being sufficient, and institutional “global availability” may differ radically from cognitive availability within one organism. [[articles/Person of Interest and The Machine|Is Person of Interest's “The Machine” Real?]] therefore uses GWT to analyze the attention layer of [[wiki/The Machine|The Machine]] while keeping phenomenology unresolved. ## Evidence Boundary A responsible claim is that distributed platforms can implement salience selection and broadcast-like coordination. Stronger claims about unified experience require evidence about integration, recurrence, identity and causal organization that ordinary architectural resemblance does not supply. ## See Also [[wiki/Extended Mind Thesis|Extended Mind Thesis]], [[wiki/Integrated Information Theory|Integrated Information Theory]], [[wiki/Selective Disclosure|Selective Disclosure]], [[wiki/Planetary Sensorium|Planetary Sensorium]], [[wiki/Higher-Order Agency|Higher-Order Agency]] ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > "If true consciousness may emerge—let's be clear what that could entail: If the machine is truly aware—it will by definition develop "a personality"." > **— Kai Krause**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/Conscious Machines Will Develop Personalities by Kai Krause|Conscious Machines Will Develop Personalities by Kai Krause]] > "What does this have to do with consciousness? Instead of focusing on pedantic philosophical issues, Crick and Koch began with their naïve intuitions. "Consciousness" has many attributes—continuity in time, a sense of agency or free will, recursiveness or "self-awareness," etc. But one attribute that stands out is subjective unity: you experience all your diverse sense impressions, thoughts, willed actions and memories as being a unity—not jittery or fragmented. This attribute of consciousness, with the accompanying sense of the immediate "present" or "here and now," is so obvious that we don't usually think about it; we regard it as axiomatic." > **— Vilayanur Ramachandran**, *2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, or Beautiful Explanation?”* [[reminders/Consciousness/Consciousness Unifies What the Brain Keeps Distributed by Vilayanur Ramachandran|Consciousness Unifies What the Brain Keeps Distributed by Vilayanur Ramachandran]] ## Relationships - **Edge Annual Question source relationship:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] preserves the annual-question source corpus from which a proposition-specific quotation is connected to this entry.