Ask A Genius 860: Workspace Theory
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/12/21
[Recording Start]
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, there’s an idea called workspace theory with regards to the operations of the mind and cognition. I sent the article or the link to you in a reference to it. What are some of your preliminary thoughts on it? Does it have any relevance to informational cosmology?
Rick Rosner: Yeah, I did my usual cursory examination of it and it seems to be dead on, I mean pretty exactly corresponding to that part of IC; that sensory information that makes it to conscious attention probably because it’s urgent or novel and then all the associations, all the things, and that everything worthy of consideration during a given moment plus all the associations pulled up by those things in your mind is the conscious workspace. I think the theory says consistent with what we believe that is so advantageous in terms of doing what the brain does which is helping you survive by modeling and predicting reality that that is a thing that arises. It’s circular reasoning to say that it’s the predominant mode of thought. It’s the thought that we’re aware of because it’s consciousness and we’re freaking conscious but it’s a big deal and for several reasons it seems to be like the best way to use your brain.
You think about things that seem to require thinking and by thinking you mean pulling up anything that your brain thinks might help you think about the things that need thinking about. It can be more than one thing at a time and all that stuff, all the things worth thinking about in a given moment according to your brain’s learned prioritization is the conscious workspace. For instance, it’s a terrible thing to get a BJ while driving. It’s very unsafe and in fact it was the precipitating… I almost got run over on Easter Sunday. I mean not run over; run off the road by a couple; a guy getting a BJ on the way to church. He was in his Easter finery and he was driving erratically and we could kind of tell there was somebody down in his lap and it’s also the precipitating incident in the Stephen King novel ‘Thinner’; somebody getting a BJ runs over an old gypsy woman and gets cursed.
So, if you’re getting a BJ while driving, there are several things demanding your attention. So, that’s an example of the conscious workspace. On the one hand the BJ and on the other hand driving and really that’s more than enough but there are other situations. I mean especially since everybody is often frozen in place like a zombie by what’s coming in over their phone, you’ve got the world that’s on your phone then you got the world that’s around. So, anyway I mean that’s the deal, that’s your workspace and we know it’s a good way of addressing reality because that’s what everybody has and uses whenever they’re awake. That’s all I got.
[Recording End]
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