Finding the neural correlates of consciousness will not solve all our problems

Abstract

Subjective experience has often taken center stage in debates between competing conceptual theories of the mind. This is also a central object of concern in the empirical domain, and especially in the search for the neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs). By now, most of the competing conceptual theories of consciousness have become aligned with distinct hypotheses about the NCCs. These hypotheses are usually distinguished by reference to their proposed location of the NCCs. This difference in hypothesized location of the NCCs has tempted participants in these debates to infer that evidence indicating the location of the NCCs in one or the other brain region can be taken as direct evidence for or against a given conceptual theory of consciousness. We argue that this is an overestimation of the work finding the NCCs can do for us, and that there are principled reasons to resist this kind of inference. To show this we point out the lack of both an isomorphism and a homomorphism between the conceptual frameworks in which most theories are cached, and the kind of data we can get from neuroimaging. The upshot is that neural activation profiles are insufficient to distinguish between competing theories in the conceptual domain. We suggest two ways to go about ameliorating this issue.

How-tests for consciousness and direct neurophenomenal structuralism

“…Synchronicity, for example, would be a detrimental constraint on NCCs if our goal is to avoid the occurrence of consciousness, e.g., during surgery: Anaesthesiologists would rather like to know neural precursors to an experience in order to have enough time to intervene and thereby prevent the awakening of a patient. Or consider that a demand for being systematically entailed by a theory may be ill-motivated at the beginning of a research program when theories are missing, are rudimentary, or cannot yet be fleshed out in neural terms (compare Overgaard and Kirkeby-Hinrup, 2021 ). 4 There would be no place for NCC research to start if entailed-by-theory were a universal constraint.…”

“… 4 Overgaard and Kirkeby-Hinrup (2021) attest that most theories of consciousness are only loosely connected to neural implementations. Therefore, finding the NCC will not solve all problems concerning which theories of consciousness is the right one.…”

Quantifying empirical support for theories of consciousness: a tentative methodological framework

“…However, in the last couple of years, attention has turned to how -or whether -empirical evidence actually may do the work for us we hoped it would (determining which theory is most plausible/preferable). This attention has illuminated many issues with respect to how we collect, deploy, assess, and compare empirical evidence in ICS, as often cast in light of well-known considerations from the philosophy of science (Seth, 2009;Del Pin et al, 2021;Kirkeby-Hinrup and Fazekas, 2021;Overgaard and Kirkeby-Hinrup, 2021;Schurger and Graziano, 2022;Kirkeby-Hinrup, 2024). These issues pertain to whether -or how -empirical evidence can help us decide which theory is ultimately most plausible/preferable on a long-term perspective (i.e., which theory is closest to truth(s) about the world with respect to propositions about the phenomenon which we call "consciousness").…”

Ontogenetic emergence as a criterion for theories of consciousness: Comparing GNW, SOMA, and REFCON

“…In recent years, various efforts have been made to develop ways of comparing candidate explanations of consciousness (e.g. Doerig et al, 2020;Kirkeby-Hinrup & Fazekas, 2021), as well as considering the kinds of evidence necessary to moving forward debates (Fink, 2016;Kirkeby-Hinrup, 2024;Overgaard & Kirkeby-Hinrup, 2021a). While these efforts differ in scope and methodology, they share certain features: a motivation to deliver structure and focus to the debates, meta-considerations of evidence, and pointing to ways to proceed from here.…”