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So his attention schema theory is actually about consciousness as a whole, not just metacognition. Here's a quote from his book Consciousness and the Social Bra
by dovin 10y ago
So his attention schema theory is actually about consciousness as a whole, not just metacognition. Here's a quote from his book Consciousness and the Social Brain:
>The attention schema theory could be said to lie half-way between two common views. In his groundbreaking book in 1991, Dennett explored a cognitive approach to consciousness, suggesting that the concept of qualia, of the inner, private experiences, is incoherent and thus we cannot truly have them. Others, such as Searle, suggested that the inner, subjective state exists by definition and is immune to attempts to explain it away. The present view lies somewhere in between; or perhaps, in the present view, the distinction between Dennett and Searle becomes moot. In the attention schema theory, the brain contains a representation, a rich informational description. The thing depicted in such nuance is experienceness. Is it real? Is it not? Does it matter? If it is depicted then doesn’t it have a type of simulated reality?
His stance is basically that theories of consciousness rely on way too much magical thinking, and that this is the most scientifically responsible position to take. That consciousness is entirely information, rather than some sort of spontaneous emergence from the processing of information.
- acqq 10y agoAlso Graziano, 2015 paper: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00500/full http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00... "According to this theory, there is, of course, no actual mystery. Attention does have a real physical basis, but the mechanistic details of the process of attention are not included in the only relevant information to which the brain has access." "This view, that the problem of subjective experience consists only in explaining why and how the brain concludes that it contains an apparently non-physical property, has been proposed before (Dennett, 1991). The attention schema theory goes beyond this idea in providing a specific functional use for the brain to compute that type of information. The heart of the attention schema theory is that there is an adaptive value for a brain to build the construct of awareness: it serves as a model of attention." "A third advantage of this theory is that it provides testable predictions. If awareness is the internal model of attention, used to help control attention, then without awareness, attention should still be possible but should suffer deficits in control. In this article, we review the existing literature on the relationship between attention and awareness, and suggest that at least some of the predictions of the theory are borne out by the evidence."
- choosername 10y agoIf information is not processed, it doesn't change. If there is a static fundamental part in the low subconscious (not un-conscious), how does it affect thought, as input? Would slow changes and additions to this model affect past thoughts?
- dovin 10y agoNot sure if this is what you mean, but according to Graziano's theory, the attention schema is constantly being updated to reflect what is going on in attention. That information is then available for the attentional system where different parts of the brain compete about what to pay attention to. In this theory the attention mechanisms are the processors, and the attention schema is the informational model of what those processors are doing. Changes to the attention schema would reflect what a person is conscious of, while changes to the attention system would change what "bubbles up" to one's awareness.