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Global Workspace Theory vs Descartes’s Substance Dualism

Baars’s and Dehaene’s Global Workspace Theory and Descartes’s Substance Dualism, compared field by field from their entries in the Atlas.

At a glance

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Materialism Baars’s and Dehaene’s Global Workspace Theory Bernard Baars, Stanislas Dehaene
Dualism Descartes’s Substance Dualism René Descartes

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.
Descartes’s Substance DualismRené Descartes holds that consciousness, which he calls thought (cogitatio), is the essence of an immaterial thinking substance (res cogitans) wholly distinct from extended, mechanical body (res extensa). Every conscious state, from reasoning and willing to pain, color, and emotion, is a mode of the thinking thing and is immediately present to it. Sensations and passions, though, arise only in the union of mind and body, where brain processes stand in regular relations to experiences they do not resemble.
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.
Descartes’s Substance DualismConsciousness is thought, defined as everything that happens within us insofar as we are immediately conscious of it, and it is the principal attribute of the mind.

Big questions

Can AI be conscious?Differ
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.
Descartes’s Substance DualismNoSince thought belongs only to immaterial substance and matter is pure extension, a machine, however complex, would be mechanism without a mind.
Does consciousness survive death?Differ
Global Workspace TheoryNoConsciousness is understood as being entirely dependent on specific, complex biological brain processes, which cease upon biological death.
Descartes’s Substance DualismYesDescartes presented the real distinction of soul and body as what makes the soul’s survival intelligible, and the Meditations announce that aim in their subtitle.
Could a mind be uploaded?Differ
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.
Descartes’s Substance DualismNoCopying the body’s mechanism would not copy the immaterial thinking substance.
Does it give life meaning?Differ
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.
Descartes’s Substance DualismCosmic/UltimateDescartes’s system rests on a non-deceiving God who guarantees knowledge and created even the eternal truths.

Nature of mind

Ontology
Global Workspace TheoryPhysicalism
Descartes’s Substance DualismSubstance dualism (Cartesian)
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.
Descartes’s Substance DualismMind and body are really distinct finite substances with exclusive essences, thought and extension, and could by divine power exist apart. They are joined in the human being, where bodily motions give rise to sensations and the mind moves the body, though Descartes never explained that interaction satisfactorily.
Fundamental or emergent
Global Workspace TheoryEmergent
Descartes’s Substance DualismPrimitive
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.
Descartes’s Substance DualismSensory qualities are not properties of matter, which has only size, shape, motion, and arrangement. Experienced redness or pain is a mental mode arising in the embodied union and cannot be captured by extension.

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.
Descartes’s Substance DualismMechanism on the bodily side and non-reduction on the mental side. Light mechanically affects eyes, nerves, and brain, and the mind then experiences color, distance, and shape in regular correspondence with those motions.
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).
Descartes’s Substance DualismThe mind is unextended. Sensations and passions are felt as belonging to one’s own body, and Descartes located mind-brain communication in the pineal gland.
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.
Descartes’s Substance DualismPassions are caused and strengthened by movements of the animal spirits and dispose the soul toward volition and action. The will can in turn move the body.

Evidence and criticism

Testability
Global Workspace TheoryEmpirically testable
Descartes’s Substance DualismConceptually 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.
Descartes’s Substance DualismNot stated
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.
Descartes’s Substance DualismPrincess Elisabeth of Bohemia asked how an immaterial soul could move a material body, and the interaction problem remains unresolved. Arnauld and later critics charged circularity, since the proofs of God that guarantee clear and distinct perception themselves rely on clear and distinct perception. The standard reading denies consciousness to animals, which most now find implausible.

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)
Descartes’s Substance Dualism
  • Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes (trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch) (1984)
  • Principles of Philosophy, René Descartes (trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch) (1985)
  • The Passions of the Soul, René Descartes (trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch) (1985)

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