Abstract
One of the reasons why the Neural Correlates of Consciousness Program could appear attractive in the 1990s was that it seemed to disentangle theoretical and empirical problems. Theoretical disagreements could thus be sidestepped in order to focus on empirical research regarding the neural substrate of consciousness. One of the further consequences of this dissociation of empirical and theoretical questions was that fundamental questions regarding the Mind Body Problem or the “Hard Problem of Consciousness” could remain unresolved even if the search for the neural correlates had been successful.Drawing on historical examples, a widely held consensus in the philosophy of science, and actual NCC research we argue that there is no such independence. Moreover, as the dependence between the theoretical and the empirical level is mutual, empirical progress will go hand in hand with theoretical development. Thus, contrary to what the original NCC program suggested, we conclude that NCC research may significantly take advantage from and contribute to theoretical progress in our explanation and understanding of consciousness. Eventually, this might even contribute to a solution of the Hard Problem of Consciousness.
Highlights
Maybe one of the most striking features of the reemerging debate about the problem of consciousness from the 1970s on were growing disagreements among materialists
We conclude that this mutual interaction between theoretical presuppositions and empirical data may even result in a significant contribution of NCC research to a better understanding of consciousness
We have argued that – against the claim of theory-neutrality – NCC research like empirical science in general is informed by theoretical presuppositions about the nature of consciousness and it needs to be so because these assumptions guide inevitable choices researchers have to make regarding experimental design, research questions, and the interpretation of their data
Summary
Maybe one of the most striking features of the reemerging debate about the problem of consciousness from the 1970s on were growing disagreements among materialists. While this first step was supposed to be theoretically neutral, the following two steps, by contrast, were described as theoretically loaded: Functional explanations that were supposed to come as a second step, and a full-blown theory of phenomenal consciousness as the third one somewhere in the distant future This interpretation explains why Chalmers and Koch talk about the neural correlates of consciousness: Our interpretation goes along with the textbook understanding of correlation as a regular co-occurrence of two phenomena that does not imply a causal or a mereological connection between them. Part 5 will demonstrate that the relation between empirical results and theoretical presuppositions works the other way round: Empirical results can help to decide conflicts between opposing theoretical presuppositions, but they can help to generate new presuppositions – in this case regarding the phenomenology and function of mental states like pain We conclude that this mutual interaction between theoretical presuppositions and empirical data may even result in a significant contribution of NCC research to a better understanding of consciousness
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