Battle of Consciousness Theories: A New Way Forward in Science

SPACE

By Aniket Chakraborty May 8, 2025 Arrow

Two top theories — Global Workspace and Integrated Information — go head-to-head.

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Scientists launched a bold adversarial collaboration to test them.

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Predictions: one theory pointed to the prefrontal cortex, the other to the posterior cortex.

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Results: no clear knockout, both theories faced surprising challenges.

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Global Workspace Theory struggled with decoding all conscious content.

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Integrated Information Theory lacked the expected brain signal synchronization.

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Yet, the real winner is science itself — a new model for honest research.

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Rival scientists agreed on testable predictions, ran shared experiments.

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Cracking consciousness won't be easy — but collaboration lights the path ahead.

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