11 Terrifying Theories About Human Consciousness

The human brain is a massive network of approximately eighty-six billion neurons, where countless processes occur in parallel: from breathing to complex thought. Most of these operations run in the "dark," entirely unconscious. Consciousness is not the sum of all these activities. Consciousness is a spotlight. The Global Workspace Theory (GWT), proposed by psychologist Bernard Baars and further developed by neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene, compares the brain to a theater. Specialized systems operate independently behind the scenes, silently processing information. Consciousness emerges only when a piece of information wins the "competition" for attention and is broadcast widely to neural networks across the entire cortex through a functional workspace.