Searching for Evidence of Phenomenal Consciousness in NCC Research

Recent scientific work aiming to give a neurobiological explanation of phenomenal consciousness has largely focused on finding neural correlates of consciousness (NCC). The hope is that by locating neural correlates of phenomenally conscious mental states, some light will be cast on how the brain is able to give rise to such states. In this paper I argue that NCC research is unable to produce evidence of such neural correlates. I do this by considering two alternative interpretations of NCC research—an eliminativist and a disjunctivist interpretation. I show that each of these interpretations is compatible with the scientific data and yet is more parsimonious than accounts involving the supposed phenomenon of phenomenal consciousness. 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 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).