Head to head
Global Workspace Theory vs Eliminative Materialism
Baars’s and Dehaene’s Global Workspace Theory and Churchland’s Eliminative Materialism, compared field by field from their entries in the Atlas.
At a glance
- Both belong to the Materialism family in Kuhn's Landscape of Consciousness.
- They give the same kind of answer on life after death and meaning and purpose.
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The claim
In brief
Global Workspace TheoryThis theory posits that conscious awareness is constituted by specific multi-sensory, multi-cognitive information that achieves brain-wide presence and broad accessibility. It conceptualizes consciousness as an inner 'theater' where this information is globally broadcast, reconciling the limited capacity of momentary conscious content with vast long-term memory access.
Eliminative MaterialismPaul and Patricia Churchland hold that common-sense psychology, our everyday talk of beliefs, desires, and experiences, is a radically false theory that a completed neuroscience will displace rather than smoothly reduce. Consciousness as we ordinarily conceive it is a brain-generated picture shaped by evolution, and our self-understanding, introspection included, will be rebuilt in neuroscientific terms.
What consciousness is
Global Workspace TheoryConsciousness is identified as the instantaneous global availability and broad accessibility of specific, integrated information across numerous specialized modular systems in the brain.
Eliminative MaterialismWhat we call consciousness, as folk psychology describes it, does not exist in that form. The real phenomena are neural processes, which only a mature neuroscience will describe correctly.
Big questions
Global Workspace TheoryYesSince the theory defines consciousness in terms of information-processing computations and architectures, and proponents suggest novel machine architectures could be based on these computations, AI consciousness is possible in principle.
Eliminative MaterialismNo position
Does consciousness survive death?Both agree
Global Workspace TheoryNoConsciousness is understood as being entirely dependent on specific, complex biological brain processes, which cease upon biological death.
Eliminative MaterialismNoSince the mind is the brain, nothing mental survives the brain’s death.
Global Workspace TheoryYesIf consciousness is wholly explained by the computational organization and information flow of the brain, a perfect duplication or uploading of these mechanisms into a non-biological substrate should preserve the first-person mental self.
Eliminative MaterialismNo position
Does it give life meaning?Both agree
Global Workspace TheoryHumanistic onlyAs a Materialist/Neurobiological theory, it does not mandate ultimate cosmic meaning or purpose, but consciousness provides essential functions (like memory reconciliation and integrated awareness) that underpin human agency and self-created value.
Eliminative MaterialismHumanistic onlyPatricia Churchland urges us to see ourselves as organisms in nature, understood by scientific methods, with no cosmic purpose.
Nature of mind
Ontology
Global Workspace TheoryPhysicalism
Eliminative MaterialismPhysicalism (eliminative)
Mind and body
Global Workspace TheoryIdentity/Correlation. The mind (conscious awareness) is identified as, or strongly correlates with, the specific, biologically realized processes of global information broadcasting in the brain.
Eliminative MaterialismThe mind is the brain. Patricia Churchland calls her program a ‘unified theory of the mind-brain’ and treats claims that mind goes beyond brain as the residue of folk myths.
Fundamental or emergent
Global Workspace TheoryEmergent
Eliminative MaterialismNeither
Qualia
Global Workspace TheoryPhenomenal experience (qualia) is accounted for by proposing a strictly biological mechanism for conscious awareness. Qualia correspond to the content of the integrated, reportable multi-sensory information that is broadly accessible within the global workspace.
Eliminative MaterialismQualia as folk psychology and philosophers conceive them are expected to give way to neuroscientific description; the view treats consciousness as a kind of illusion generated by the brain.
How it works
Mechanism
Global Workspace TheoryGlobal broadcasting and accessibility of information, allowing a single coherent content to be made available to many specialized, unconscious modules simultaneously.
Eliminative MaterialismTheory displacement. Folk psychology will be replaced the way outdated scientific theories were, its principles and ontology discarded rather than mapped onto brain states.
Where it is
Global Workspace TheoryBrain-wide, encompassing widespread areas, particularly associated with frontal and parietal regions (often characterized as a 'front of the head' theory in contrast to 'back of the head' theories like IIT).
Eliminative MaterialismIn the brain.
What it does
Global Workspace TheoryGlobal broadcasting constitutes consciousness. Functionally, it allows for flexible control and reconciliation between limited momentary conscious content and long-term memory resources.
Eliminative MaterialismBehavior is caused by neural processes; neuroscience is expected to explain it better than folk psychology does.
Evidence and criticism
Testability
Global Workspace TheoryEmpirically testable
Eliminative MaterialismConceptually testable
Tests so far
Global Workspace TheoryNeuroimaging and computer modeling studies used to investigate its claims. It is implicitly subject to the 'neurogeographic' debate contrasting 'front of the head' theories with posterior theories.
Eliminative MaterialismThe view stakes its claim on the future course of neuroscience; whether folk categories survive in mature brain science is the long-run test.
Criticisms
Global Workspace TheoryCriticized for focusing on 'access' rather than genuine phenomenal experience, exemplified by the critique that the theory is 'all about access but not about seeing'. It faces tension regarding whether global broadcasting is necessary or merely a consequence of consciousness.
Eliminative MaterialismCritics say denying subjective experience defies both intuition and direct evidence; Galen Strawson calls the denial of experience ‘the strangest thing that has ever happened in the whole history of human thought’. There is also tension between Patricia Churchland’s talk of reduction to neurobiology and the eliminativist claim that folk psychology will be displaced rather than reduced.
Sources
Key sources
Global Workspace Theory
- A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness (1988)
- In the Theater of Consciousness (1997)
- Towards a cognitive neuroscience of consciousness: basic evidence and a workspace framework, Dehaene and Naccache (2000)
Eliminative Materialism
- Neurophilosophy, Patricia Churchland (1986)
- Churchland’s Eliminative Materialism (Landscape of Consciousness), Patricia Churchland