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

Overgaard, Morten and Kirkeby-Hinrup, Asger LU (2021) In Philosophy and the Mind Sciences 2.
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... (More)
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. (Less)
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author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Consciousness, NCC, Neural Correlates of Consciousness, Early-Late, Prefrontal Cortex, Recurrent Processing
in
Philosophy and the Mind Sciences
volume
2
ISSN
2699-0369
DOI
10.33735/phimisci.2021.37
project
Access consciousness, phenomenal consciousness, and their neural correlates
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
79245b54-32eb-4b0a-90d5-740b4286328a
date added to LUP
2021-08-31 10:56:44
date last changed
2021-08-31 15:52:37
@article{79245b54-32eb-4b0a-90d5-740b4286328a,
  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.}},
  author       = {{Overgaard, Morten and Kirkeby-Hinrup, Asger}},
  issn         = {{2699-0369}},
  keywords     = {{Consciousness; NCC; Neural Correlates of Consciousness; Early-Late; Prefrontal Cortex; Recurrent Processing}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{07}},
  series       = {{Philosophy and the Mind Sciences}},
  title        = {{Finding the neural correlates of consciousness will not solve all our problems}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.33735/phimisci.2021.37}},
  doi          = {{10.33735/phimisci.2021.37}},
  volume       = {{2}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}