Bernard Baars

Abstract

Bernard J. Baars (born on 1946 in Amsterdam, Netherlands) is an American neuroscientist whose work has fundamentally contributed to make consciousness a respectable subject of scientific inquiry. Baars received a BSc in Psychology and a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In 1977, he was appointed as Professor of Psychology at the State University of New York (SUNY) and from 1986 to 2000 was Institute Faculty Professor of The Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. In 2000, he became Senior Fellow in Theoretical Neurobiology at The Neurosciences Institute, San Diego, California, where he is currently Affiliate Research Fellow. Baars is founding coeditor of Consciousness and Cognition: An International Journal and founding editor of Science and Consciousness Review. He is also founding president of the Association for Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC).

A theatre combines very limited events taking place on stage

with a vast audience, just as consciousness involves

limited information that creates access to a vast number

of unconscious sources of knowledge. Consciousness seems to be

the publicity organ of the brain. It is a facility for accessing,

disseminating and exchanging information,

and for exercising global coordination and control.

(In the Theater of Consciousness)