In the Theater of Consciousness: The Workspace of the Mind

For such a small book this is chock full of information and is one of the easiest to read books on the subject of the brain and how we think that I have seen.

I became interested in "philosophy of mind" several years ago and have since read a variety of books dealing with the mind-body-consciousness problem. "In The Theater of Consciousness" was my first read from the field of cognitive psychology. And a good read it was. It provides a concise yet comprehensive review of what can be said about human consciousness from the empirical perspective. This book is ten years old now and obviously misses a decade of new research. But I suspect that most of what Bernard Baars presents is still relevant, and provides a good foundation for what cognitive psychology is doing these days. It also helps to enhance one's understanding of what the neuroscientists and artificial intelligence people are up to. In evaluating a technical book intended for a lay audience, the author's attitude towards his or her readership is very important to me. Dr. Baars displays a very considerate attitude. He provides a lot of drawings, conceptual diagrams, try-it-yourself exercises, and even a few brain scan photos (quite impressive for 1997; were the book to be re-issued today, it could include a lot more of these, given the progress made in neuro-scanning since then). In the Epilogue, Dr. Baars expresses his gratitude "to the reader who has come this far on our shared journey". My goodness, an academic doyen who actually thanks the layman for reading his book! That's quite rare (and quite refreshing). Dr. Baars' "theater spotlight" and "global workspace" metaphors for consciousness and its relationship to unconscious processes (and even to neuron-level workings) are indeed very useful and thought-provoking. This book will indeed help you to understand why your mind does what it does. For example, the section on "attention" as the funnel of consciousness and "absorption" as the mind's focus upon a subject absorbing all of its limited capacity to be conscious, helps to explain how we often "suspend our disbelief" when watching TV or a movie. It also helps to explain how commercials and sales pitches work - if someone wants to sell you something and they can absorb all of your attention through entertainment, there's not enough room left for your skeptical facilities to operate. So you buy, and only later on does your critical/analytical component get back "on stage" within your conscious mind - "gee, I wonder if that was really worth the money?" (But then the ego-rationalization "actor" appears, saying "of course it was worth it, we don't make mistakes, it's gonna be great"). Another important concept is "mental contexts". Dr. Baars gives a much better explanation than I can, but in a nutshell, mental contexts are sub-conscious tendencies or "primers" that shape one's interpretations of sensory inputs. They basically help you decide just what it is that you are seeing or hearing or smelling or feeling or reading. They are changeable -- think about how you interpret the word "flies" in the lines "time flies like an

Baars allows any reader to follow his tour through the theater theory of consciousness in an easy readable approach. He makes sure the reader has adequate examples of real life events and situations in order to better understand an interesting theory. Where does the human species go from here?

What is consciousness? Or at least how does it work? Historically, the last individual to seriously address these questions was the great American philosopher William James, who in his seminal tome 'Principles of Psychology' (1890) outlined the essentials of a fairly comprehensive 'stream of consciousness' theory. But for most of the twentieth century the hard-problem of consciousness was either studiously avoided or redefined as something else. But in recent years with the demise of Behaviorism and its repressive dogma, groups calling themselves Cognitivist Psychologists have emerged who are resurrecting the pioneering work begun by James over 100 years ago. For serious readers interested in 'getting their feet wet' in the relatively new field of Cognitivism, Dr. Bernard Baars' highly readable book 'In the Theater of Consciousness' would serve as an excellent introduction. I have to rate it 5 STARS. Also, if this book whets your appetite for more, you may want to consider Baars' more rigorous 'A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness' where his global workspace theory is more fully developed.

Baars explains the structure of consciousness in highly readable, involving, accurate, and scientifically deep terms. (Amazing but true!) His book is laced with exercises that demonstrate the phenomena he is explaining in entertaining and often surprising ways. His analysis is just about the only comprehensive functional account of consciousness. This is a must read for anyone interested in scientific understanding of the mind