Global Access, Embodiment, and the Conscious Subject
Murray Shanahan
Abstract
The objectives of this article are twofold. First, by denying the dualism
inherent in attempts to load metaphysical significance on the inner / outer
distinction, it defends the view that scientific investigation can approach
consciousness in itself, and is not somehow restricted in scope to the outward
manifestations of a private and hidden realm. Second, it provisionally endorses
the central tenets of global workspace theory, and recommends them as a possible
basis for the sort of scientific understanding of consciousness thus legitimised.
However, the article goes on to argue that global workspace theory alone does
not constitute a fully worked-out objective account of the conscious subject.
This requires additional attention to be paid to (at least) the issue of
embodiment, and to the possibility of indexicality that arises when an instantiation
of the global workspace architecture inhabits a spatially localised body.