Bernie Baar's "global workspace" theory does indeedseemto be consistent with Representational Qualia theory, as I thought when I heard Baars explain his theory at a plenary talk. When I submitted a paper http://slehar.com/www/webstuff/consc1/consc1a.html actually recommending him as a reviewer, he revealed his deep hostility to the very notion of Representational Qualia theory, so much so that he recommended that the paper never see the light of day, he dismissed it in the most insulting manner possible. (Follow the sordid tale here http://slehar.com/www/webstuff/consc/rejected.html ). So I can say with some certainty that in Berni Baar's mind ("MisterGlobal Workspace") his theory has nothing to do with Representationalism! (See the donkey's ass http://slehar.com/www/webstuff/consc1/response.html )

The whole idea is to get everyone to jump to a single consensus camp.

So if your camp isn't the consensus camp, you want the consensus camp to change or be fixed to include everything in your camp.

If the supporters of the consensus camp agree with most of what you want, but not a few other things, you can push the disagreeable doctrines down to a supporting sub camp. The important part is getting all the stuff everyone does agree on, in the consensus camp, and keep the focus on that.

While still tracking any disagreeable stuff in competing sub camps, which all support the supper camp everyone does agree on.

Thanks, J-Brew. Perhaps you can help me better understand the meaning of "merge".

Suppose that we want to merge Camps A and B, but the two camps have inconsistent tenets, Tenet A and Tenet B, while their other tenets are not explicitly inconsistent. Could Camps A and B be merged to form Camp (AB), with Camp (AB) having all tenets of both Camps A and B except their inconsistent tenets, i.e. Tenet A and Tenet B? Or could they instead be merged to form Camp (AB) by replacing Tenets A and B with a disjunction, e.g. Tenet (A OR B)? Or could they be merged in some other way?

In any case, I suggest it would be useful to have explicit lists of tenets for camps that are being merged.

I did some follow up on the Templeton Foundation Accelerating Research on Consciousness effort to merge several theories of consciousness. The philosopher Ned Block was awarded a $213K grant starting in 2020 to study "Analyzing and Merging Theories of Consciousness". This grant funds a post-doc to work with Ned Block until 2023. Details are found at https://www.templetonworldcharity.org/projects-database/0484

It ould be interesting to see how this work proceeds.

Hello Folks,

We welcome all the new people that have recently joined and are now contributing to this  consensus building project.

Through this article in Quantum Magazine entitled “Neuroscience readies for a showdown over consciousness ideas”, we learned of an exciting project where the “Templeton World Charity” is embarking on their Accelerating Research on Consciousness (ARC) project.  They are going to work on finding and performing experimental ways to test both the leading “Integrated Information” and “Global Workspace” theories.

Obviously, there is much overlap in what Canonizer and ARC are attempting scientifically.  I believe the methods employed by Canonizer.com in general, and this topic specifically, could contribute greatly to this effort.  Towards this end, we are going to reach out to them with a proposal. If anyone knows anyone involved or any more about this project and is willing to assist us, even if only offering to provide a signature on our proposal letter to them, that would be greatly appreciated.  It would be much more impressive if we had a bunch of you as signatories on the email, so let us know if this is OK to include your name. Here is the Google doc where we are working on this proposal to the “Templeton World Charity”.

I’ve always figured that Integrated Information and Global Workspace theories could be unified into a single unified theory making powerful testable predictions about consciousness.  One of our newest supporters is Joel Frohlich.  He has contributed the new  Integrated Information Theory camp under Mind/Brain identity under Representational Qualia Theory.  I’m proposing that we push this theory up to be included in Representational Qualia theory.  I propose something like adding the below section to the Representational Qualia Theory camp statement.  Here is the Google doc where we are drafting these proposed camp changes copied below.

Unification of 3 theories

• Integrated Information Theory

• Global Workspace Theory

• Representational Qualia Theory

The supporters of this camp agree with the general ideas presented in Integrated Information Theory and Global Workspace Theory, and that they can both be productively unified with Representational Qualia Theory.  These theories make attempts to deal with the qualitative nature of consciousness. However, neither of these theories provides any kind of insight into how we might bridge the explanatory gap and determine if two people are or are not red green qualia inverts. They also don’t help us discover which, if any, known physics in the brain have a redness quality. This is all required for “effing of the ineffable” nature of qualia.  Representational Qualia Theory does this. RQT describes elemental physical qualities like redness and greenness being “computationally bound together”. Integrated information theory denotes the amount of integration by the greek letter phi , which is the same thing as the amount of computational binding of elemental phenomenal qualities.  Finally, all this integrated qualitative information results in exactly a “momentarily active, subjectively experienced event in working memory,” which is the Global Workspace in the Global Workspace Theory.