Head to head
Eliminative Materialism vs Crick and Koch’s NCC
Churchland’s Eliminative Materialism and Crick and Koch’s Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC), compared field by field from their entries in the Atlas.
At a glance
- Both belong to the Materialism family in Kuhn's Landscape of Consciousness.
- They give the same kind of answer on life after death and meaning and purpose.
Add more theories to this comparisonCompare other theories
The claim
In brief
Eliminative MaterialismPaul and Patricia Churchland hold that common-sense psychology, our everyday talk of beliefs, desires, and experiences, is a radically false theory that a completed neuroscience will displace rather than smoothly reduce. Consciousness as we ordinarily conceive it is a brain-generated picture shaped by evolution, and our self-understanding, introspection included, will be rebuilt in neuroscientific terms.
Crick and Koch’s NCCThis theory proposes a scientific agenda to identify the Neural Correlate of Consciousness (NCC), defined as the minimum activities in the brain that are jointly sufficient and necessary for any specific conscious perception or subjective experience. It asserts that consciousness is entirely physical and can be fully reduced to these specific brain activities.
What consciousness is
Eliminative MaterialismWhat we call consciousness, as folk psychology describes it, does not exist in that form. The real phenomena are neural processes, which only a mature neuroscience will describe correctly.
Crick and Koch’s NCCConsciousness (phenomenal consciousness/qualia) is identified as the Neural Correlate of Consciousness (NCC), the precise minimum pattern of neural activity in the brain necessary and sufficient for subjective experience.
Big questions
Eliminative MaterialismNo position
Crick and Koch’s NCCYesIf consciousness is entirely reducible to physical organizational patterns (NCC), then non-biological systems capable of replicating those precise patterns should also become conscious, barring technological constraints.
Does consciousness survive death?Both agree
Eliminative MaterialismNoSince the mind is the brain, nothing mental survives the brain’s death.
Crick and Koch’s NCCNoAs a Materialist theory, consciousness is wholly dependent on the physical brain; cessation of brain function entails the end of consciousness.
Eliminative MaterialismNo position
Crick and Koch’s NCCYesIf the NCC states can be perfectly measured and replicated in a digital or artificial medium (mind uploading), the resulting system would be functionally and phenomenally identical, achieving virtual immortality in principle.
Does it give life meaning?Both agree
Eliminative MaterialismHumanistic onlyPatricia Churchland urges us to see ourselves as organisms in nature, understood by scientific methods, with no cosmic purpose.
Crick and Koch’s NCCHumanistic onlyConsistent with Materialism, consciousness is a biological product of evolution and physics, conferring no ultimate cosmic meaning or teleology beyond that which humans create for themselves.
Nature of mind
Ontology
Eliminative MaterialismPhysicalism (eliminative)
Crick and Koch’s NCCReductive Physicalism/Materialism. The NCC approach is considered macroscopic materialism.
Mind and body
Eliminative MaterialismThe mind is the brain. Patricia Churchland calls her program a ‘unified theory of the mind-brain’ and treats claims that mind goes beyond brain as the residue of folk myths.
Crick and Koch’s NCCIdentity Theory. Mental states are wholly identical to and fully explained by the physical NCC states.
Fundamental or emergent
Eliminative MaterialismNeither
Crick and Koch’s NCCEmergent
Qualia
Eliminative MaterialismQualia as folk psychology and philosophers conceive them are expected to give way to neuroscientific description; the view treats consciousness as a kind of illusion generated by the brain.
Crick and Koch’s NCCQualia (the qualitative feel of experience) are identified with the minimum neural activities (NCC) that are jointly sufficient for specific conscious perception, although the mechanism for this identity remains the central 'hard problem' challenge.
How it works
Mechanism
Eliminative MaterialismTheory displacement. Folk psychology will be replaced the way outdated scientific theories were, its principles and ontology discarded rather than mapped onto brain states.
Crick and Koch’s NCCThe search for and definition of the Neural Correlate of Consciousness (NCC): the specific minimum neural activities necessary and sufficient for subjective experience.
Where it is
Eliminative MaterialismIn the brain.
Crick and Koch’s NCCLocalized in specific brain areas. Early candidates included the claustrum (as a 'conductor' coordinating percepts); later candidates focused on the posterior cerebral cortex (temporo-parietal-occipital hot zone).
What it does
Eliminative MaterialismBehavior is caused by neural processes; neuroscience is expected to explain it better than folk psychology does.
Crick and Koch’s NCCConsciousness is directly caused by, and is identical to, the NCC activity. NCC mechanisms (spikes, flows, circuits) are seen as constitutive of phenomenal consciousness.
Evidence and criticism
Testability
Eliminative MaterialismConceptually testable
Crick and Koch’s NCCEmpirically testable. The search for the NCC is defined as a scientific program seeking testable biological bases for consciousness.
Tests so far
Eliminative MaterialismThe view stakes its claim on the future course of neuroscience; whether folk categories survive in mature brain science is the long-run test.
Crick and Koch’s NCCIdentifying specific clusters of neurons or brain regions (like the claustrum or posterior cortex) that are active during conscious experience.,Measuring electrophysiological activity (e.g., action potentials and neural circuits).
Criticisms
Eliminative MaterialismCritics say denying subjective experience defies both intuition and direct evidence; Galen Strawson calls the denial of experience ‘the strangest thing that has ever happened in the whole history of human thought’. There is also tension between Patricia Churchland’s talk of reduction to neurobiology and the eliminativist claim that folk psychology will be displaced rather than reduced.
Crick and Koch’s NCCThe primary tension is the 'explanatory gap': identifying a correlation (NCC) does not explain the identity statement of how physical activity (spikes/chemicals) literally generates phenomenal feel (qualia). The failure to identify a 'clear' NCC after decades of research is a practical limitation.
Sources
Key sources
Eliminative Materialism
- Neurophilosophy, Patricia Churchland (1986)
- Churchland’s Eliminative Materialism (Landscape of Consciousness), Patricia Churchland
Crick and Koch’s NCC
- Towards a neurobiological theory of consciousness, F. Crick and C. Koch (1990)
- What is the function of the claustrum?, F. Crick and C. Koch (2005)
- The Quest for Consciousness: a Neurobiological Approach, C. Koch (2004)