Peer Commentary on ‘Are There Neural Correlates of Consciousness?’ A STEW OF CONFUSION

This is the thesis the authors aim to discredit. But before examining their argument, consider straightforward common sense. Imagine a 10-year old boy. Ask him to read a comic book and to describe it in detail. Now check the book to see if he is telling you the truth. If he is, you have just verified our fundamental evidence for detailed conscious knowledge of the world. Now simply wait for him to fall asleep and become unconscious. Is the state of his brain responsible for the fact that he can no longer answer your questions? If you doubt it, attach simple electrodes to his head to show that his entire brain is in an utterly different state than before. Wake him up, and notice that his brain state changes back, and that he can now answer your questions again. This is all you need to show that sensory consciousness requires brain processes to represent the world. To cast doubt on such basic facts, the authors use a classical gambit: First, set an unrealistically high standard for what you suppose scientists to be doing. Then show they cannot meet your standard. Since science is an inductive, hill-climbing enterprise that never reaches metaphysical certainty, you can always set the standard a bit higher than current science can reach. Then, when science finds out a bit more, set the standard for ‘real understanding’ a notch higher. Repeat as needed. This has been the standard way to attack scientific studies of consciousness. It appears again and again; but the goal posts keep moving. By this argument physics knows hardly anything about gravity, even 400 years after Newton. After all, there might be gravity particles, which may provide a deeper and more veridical understanding than we have today. If we set the criterion high enough, science