I’ve posted a new paper considering research on neural correlates of consciousness, here.
In the paper I argue that the search for neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) is at the forefront of current scientific interest in consciousness. It is frequently asserted that the NCC project is the starting point for a science of consciousness. This is especially true for those researchers who aim to give a neurobiological theory of phenomenal consciousness—members of what I have termed the new science of consciousness. Many prominent new scientists hold that the first step in developing such a theory is to find neural activity that specifically correlates with the contents of a subject’s phenomenal consciousness. If these researchers are correct in their assessment of the importance of the NCC project, then the new science will rise or fall with the search for neural correlates of the contents of phenomenal consciousness. In this paper, I assess the empirical prospects of this research project. I challenge the claim that phenomenal consciousness exists, concluding that new scientists are erroneously trying to correlate neural activity with the contents of phenomenal consciousness. To see this, we need to begin by articulating the phenomena that new scientists are interested in (the contents of phenomenal consciousness) and the data that are collected during NCC experiments (records of the behavioral reports of subjects and measures of their neural activity). I argue that the data that are collected in these experiments are insufficient evidence to establish the reality of the hypothesized phenomena of interest. This is shown by considering two alternative interpretations of the standard NCC experiment—viz. an eliminativist interpretation and a disjunctivist interpretation.
Comments welcome and appreciated!
search for neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) is at the forefront of current scientific interest in consciousness. It is frequently asserted that the NCC project is the starting point for a science of consciousness. This is especially true for those researchers who aim to give a neurobiological theory of phenomenal consciousness—members of what I have termed the new science of consciousness. Many prominent new scientists hold that the first step in developing such a theory is to find neural activity that specifically correlates with the contents of a subject’s phenomenal consciousness.[1] If these researchers are correct in their assessment of the importance of the NCC project, then the new science will rise or fall with the search for neural correlates of the contents of phenomenal consciousness. In this paper, I assess the empirical prospects of this research project. I challenge the claim that phenomenal consciousness exists, concluding that new scientists are erroneously trying to correlate neural activity with the contents of phenomenal consciousness.
To see this, we need to begin by articulating the phenomena that new scientists are interested in (the contents of phenomenal consciousness) and the data that are collected during NCC experiments (records of the behavioral reports of subjects and measures of their neural activity). I argue that the data that are collected in these experiments are insufficient evidence to establish the reality of the hypothesized phenomena of interest. This is shown by considering two alternative interpretations of the standard NCC experiment—viz. an eliminativist interpretation and a disjunctivist interpretation.
[1] This is not the only goal that one can have in conducting research under the “NCC” label. Nonetheless, the search for neural correlates of the contents of phenomenal consciousness is arguably the most common project amongst NCC researchers and has often been considered the standard NCC project. For example, Jakob Hohwy writes (2007, 465, emphasis in the original): “The standard NCC approach is primarily interested in the neural substrate for having one rather another content represented in consciousness (e.g. a percept of a face rather than of a house).” See Chalmers (1998, 2000), Hohwy (2007), and Rees (2007) for discussions of NCC research; see also the articles collected in Metzinger (2000).
