How do we regulate our impulsive emotions, resist temptation, break bad habits, and come up to our best potential - and why do we sometimes run short? Is willpower anything like muscle power? In this episode, we welcome prominent social psychologist Roy F. Baumeister, who has published some 700 scientific works, including 40 books. A recipient of m…

Neurobiologist Stuart Firestein, one of the world's leading experts on olfaction, joins Bernard Baars to discuss the similarities and surprising differences of smell and taste in relation to vision, hearing and somatosensory systems, like touch. The olfactory system presents us with alternative views of how sensory stimuli are parsed in the brain a…

In this episode, we examine Human Consciousness and AI, and particularly the popular idea that AI will become conscious at some point. Because conscious brains are the product of enormous periods of evolution and environmental conditions that keep changing in basic ways, the popular idea that machine consciousness is just around the corner is quest…

The home of the late Nobel Laureate, Gerald Edelman, is the setting for this elevated discussion on human consciousness. In this episode, Bernie is joined by Gerald's son and neuroscientist David Edelman, developmental neuropsychiatrist Dr. Jay Giedd, and professional magician Mark Mitton. What level of biology is relevant to the study of conscious…

We think of the cortex in terms of anatomical regions, but the cortex works as a whole. Static, gross anatomical divisions are superseded by the dynamical connectome of cortex. This holistic viewpoint is detailed in the recent paper in the Journal Frontiers in Psychology: Consciousness Research, titled "Global Workspace Theory & Prefrontal Cortex: …

“Can consciousness be seen as the key to understanding our surroundings and organizing our actions?” — David Edelman, PhD, Neuroscientist and Visiting Scholar in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College Ep 22: Consciousness Has an Integrative Function with Neuroscientist, David Edelman Episode 22 of our podcast On Con…

"Subjectivity and consciousness are the two main mysteries that science is still faced with. I'm an optimist. I believe that in the next half a century we might make progress on understanding consciousness." - Stanley A. Klein, psychophysicist, professor of Vision Science and Optometry at the University of California, Berkeley and a member of the B…

The brain seeks meaning and patterns. It would be very adaptive to do so in nature, because you need to know how to predict danger and to develop social ties. So our brains are very good at recognizing patterns, but also at creating them, even when they're not there. - Dr. Jay Giedd, Chair of Child Psychiatry at Rady Children's Hospital - San Diego…

Studies show that, especially for young children, if you prematurely wake them up and deprive them of that much needed sleep, it becomes detrimental to their proper cognitive development further down in life. I just wonder about the amount of damage we're doing to kids with 7:20 AM school start times. - Ilian Daskalov, senior undergraduate student …

Global Workspace Theory is probably oversimplified, just like the Newtonian theory of the planets and their orbits. And that's what framework theories usually do. You don't want to go to them for the details, you want to go to them for the overview. And Global Workspace is really an overview. – Dr. Bernard Baars, originator of Global Workspace Theo…

"I think in terms of consciousness, it seems to me that these Feelings of Knowing are perhaps the conscious tip of the iceberg for this huge amount of unconscious processing that's going on of all this information in our environment, where maybe I couldn't tell you why I know there's danger, but I know." - Alea Skwara, PhD Candidate in the Percepti…

"One of the major features of the Global Workspace hypothesis began with limited capacity, that there has to be a compensatory event in the brain happening, and the most plausible one, for various reasons, including other people's work, of course, was that there's some kind of very wide recruitment of brain resources that happens as a function of b…

"The idea is to help people understand how this science is relevant to their daily lives. Our brain likes novelty. It gets this sort of dopamine hit when you give it new information. Capturing attention and getting people excited about the information is really important, especially when dealing with things like public health issues, for example.” …

“In many cases you can see an immediate effect, as in chronic depression – suddenly you turn on the electrodes – you don't tell them when it's on or off, right? And their whole face lights up. And you ask, "What do you feel like?" And they say, "Oh, it feels wonderful. It feels like I won the lottery! It's so great!" – Dr. Heather Berlin, Neuropsyc…

"The only way we get certainty or stability in the world is to start from what we know, and gradually move to what we don't know." - Bernard Baars, PhD, originator of the Global Workspace Theory, a theory of cognitive architecture and consciousness. Episode 13: "Thinking About Animal Consciousness" The question of whether some non-human animals are…

"Consciousness can be firmly embedded in biology, based on the fact that all kinds of [demonstrably biological] processes that are not [by themselves] conscious are important for conscious process[ing].” - David Edelman, PhD, A neuroscientist and a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College Episode 1…

"Episodic memory involves conscious experiences being encoded. Same goes for semantic and autobiographical memories. All varieties of memories come in through conscious moments of recall. So, I think that consciousness is the means by which any kinds of memories are established." - Bernard Baars, PhD, originator of global workspace theory and globa…

"All models are wrong, but some are useful." And I think ultimately that's the test of a construct like Global Workspace Theory - does it lead us to greater knowledge? Does it suggest areas of research? Does it make predictions that we can test? And that's why I think Global Workspace Theory has stood the test of time. It has succeeded on all of th…

"You highlighted the difference that makes a difference. Тhis is not only a neat catchphrase, but there's also something very deep about it. And sleep, in fact, is a really interesting aspect of behavior, that maybe gives us a window on the difference between conscious and non-conscious processes in the brain, because there is a distinct difference…

"I want to try to understand consciousness from a neuroanatomy and neuro-function standpoint. What would consciousness look like in a brain scanner and other types of imaging? What are we looking for, in a sense, and could I predict from basically the architecture and the anatomy, that this could be conscious, and this would not be able to be consc…

In this uplifting episode recorded at La Jolla landmark D.G. Wills Books, neuroscientists Bernie Baars & David Edelman unpack the nature of consciousness — the ineffable sense of ‘aboutness’ each one of us experiences that encompasses features of the outside world, your own thoughts, recollections, and emotions, all of which mysteriously — yet inev…

In this episode of "On Consciousness," neuroscientists Bernie Baars, Jeff Krichmar, and David Edelman engage in a freewheeling conversation that begins with mulling over the possible development of conscious machines -- or ‘conscious artifact,’ as Gerald Edelman put it -- sometime in the not-so-distant future. We unpack the various ‘bumps in the ro…

Why are we conscious? Is cortex the organ of mind? Throughout human history, people have perceived the conscious brain as the great nexus of human life, of social relationships, of their personal identities and histories, in encounters with new challenges. In Episode #5 of the podcast On Consciousness, Bernard Baars, originator of GWT, talks with n…

“If not in the womb, at what point in life do we first have the sensation of being us? In terms of knowing that we’re an individual person... And where that line is crossed, including octopus or other animals, at what point in terms of our brain development are the brains capable of this sensation of being self aware?” Naturalizing Consciousness: C…

The engine of evolution is geared to overproduce and selectively eliminate. How do biological systems confront, adapt, and survive an ever-changing world? This is the central question that defined Charles Darwin’s scientific journey. In Episode #4 of NATURALIZING CONSCIOUSNESS - the premiere event for the new podcast "On Consciousness with Bernard …

What Is Subjectivity? We have a growing understanding of many relationships between the structure and functions of the brain and our own private experiences. What is the best scientific evidence that can tell us about subjectivity and the brain? In Episode #3 of NATURALIZING CONSCIOUSNESS - the premiere event for the new podcast "On Consciousness w…

In Part One of NATURALIZING CONSCIOUSNESS - the premiere event for the new podcast "On Consciousness with Bernard Baars" - neuroscientist David Edelman discusses his father, Nobel Laureate Gerald M. Edelman's life, reminisces about little known stories and milestones, and the professional artistry of GME's distinguished career and groundbreaking th…

NATURALIZING CONSCIOUSNESS: A Special Tribute to Nobel Laureate Gerald M. Edelman. Our premiere event "Naturalizing Consciousness" is Episode #1 of The Podcast "On Consciousness with Bernard Baars." This full length event features open-minded conversations on the biology of subjectivity, Neural Darwinism, Global Workspace Theory, plus new ideas abo…