Does Global Neuronal Workspace Theory Explain Phenomenal Consciousness? The Motivated Emotional Mind Challenge

Abstract

Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT) is one of the most extensively developed empirical research programmes on access consciousness. By contrast, the Motivated Emotional Mind (MEM) model proposes an embodied, semi-hierarchical associative memory in which representational selection, action, recurrent reconstruction of modality-specific fields, interoception, and valence form a single functional cycle. This article assesses whether MEM mechanisms can reproduce the functions explained by GNWT and whether they yield additional hypotheses concerning phenomenal quality. We first reconstruct the origins, mechanistic core, strengths, and limitations of GNWT, and then present the origins of MEM, the architecture of semblions, and the FFS-RP cycle. In the comparative analysis, we distinguish functional similarity from mechanistic identity and empirical equivalence. We examine 25 publications: twelve canonical studies of GNWT or critiques thereof, and thirteen studies of perception, interoception, and affect. For each study, we juxtapose the GNWT interpretation with a possible MEM reinterpretation. The findings indicate that most classical effects - including threshold dynamics, maintenance, recurrence, long-range connectivity, and flexible use of information - are compatible with both theories. This compatibility weakens the claim that the GNWT interpretation is exclusive, but does not yet provide theory-specific support for MEM. MEM advances a broader hypothesis integrating access, modality-specific reconstruction, bodily state, affect, and action; its potential explanatory advantage nevertheless remains a hypothesis requiring preregistered quantitative tests. We propose a series of interventions designed to dissociate sensory re-entry, global availability, report, and interoceptive valuation.