Open the map

Head to head

Crick and Koch’s NCC vs Descartes’s Substance Dualism

Crick and Koch’s Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC) and Descartes’s Substance Dualism, compared field by field from their entries in the Atlas.

At a glance

Add more theories to this comparisonCompare other theories

Materialism Crick and Koch’s Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC) Francis Crick, Christof Koch
Dualism Descartes’s Substance Dualism René Descartes

The claim

In brief
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.
Descartes’s Substance DualismRené Descartes holds that consciousness, which he calls thought (cogitatio), is the essence of an immaterial thinking substance (res cogitans) wholly distinct from extended, mechanical body (res extensa). Every conscious state, from reasoning and willing to pain, color, and emotion, is a mode of the thinking thing and is immediately present to it. Sensations and passions, though, arise only in the union of mind and body, where brain processes stand in regular relations to experiences they do not resemble.
What consciousness is
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.
Descartes’s Substance DualismConsciousness is thought, defined as everything that happens within us insofar as we are immediately conscious of it, and it is the principal attribute of the mind.

Big questions

Can AI be conscious?Differ
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.
Descartes’s Substance DualismNoSince thought belongs only to immaterial substance and matter is pure extension, a machine, however complex, would be mechanism without a mind.
Does consciousness survive death?Differ
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.
Descartes’s Substance DualismYesDescartes presented the real distinction of soul and body as what makes the soul’s survival intelligible, and the Meditations announce that aim in their subtitle.
Could a mind be uploaded?Differ
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.
Descartes’s Substance DualismNoCopying the body’s mechanism would not copy the immaterial thinking substance.
Does it give life meaning?Differ
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.
Descartes’s Substance DualismCosmic/UltimateDescartes’s system rests on a non-deceiving God who guarantees knowledge and created even the eternal truths.

Nature of mind

Ontology
Crick and Koch’s NCCReductive Physicalism/Materialism. The NCC approach is considered macroscopic materialism.
Descartes’s Substance DualismSubstance dualism (Cartesian)
Mind and body
Crick and Koch’s NCCIdentity Theory. Mental states are wholly identical to and fully explained by the physical NCC states.
Descartes’s Substance DualismMind and body are really distinct finite substances with exclusive essences, thought and extension, and could by divine power exist apart. They are joined in the human being, where bodily motions give rise to sensations and the mind moves the body, though Descartes never explained that interaction satisfactorily.
Fundamental or emergent
Crick and Koch’s NCCEmergent
Descartes’s Substance DualismPrimitive
Qualia
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.
Descartes’s Substance DualismSensory qualities are not properties of matter, which has only size, shape, motion, and arrangement. Experienced redness or pain is a mental mode arising in the embodied union and cannot be captured by extension.

How it works

Mechanism
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.
Descartes’s Substance DualismMechanism on the bodily side and non-reduction on the mental side. Light mechanically affects eyes, nerves, and brain, and the mind then experiences color, distance, and shape in regular correspondence with those motions.
Where it is
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).
Descartes’s Substance DualismThe mind is unextended. Sensations and passions are felt as belonging to one’s own body, and Descartes located mind-brain communication in the pineal gland.
What it 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.
Descartes’s Substance DualismPassions are caused and strengthened by movements of the animal spirits and dispose the soul toward volition and action. The will can in turn move the body.

Evidence and criticism

Testability
Crick and Koch’s NCCEmpirically testable. The search for the NCC is defined as a scientific program seeking testable biological bases for consciousness.
Descartes’s Substance DualismConceptually testable
Tests so far
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).
Descartes’s Substance DualismNot stated
Criticisms
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.
Descartes’s Substance DualismPrincess Elisabeth of Bohemia asked how an immaterial soul could move a material body, and the interaction problem remains unresolved. Arnauld and later critics charged circularity, since the proofs of God that guarantee clear and distinct perception themselves rely on clear and distinct perception. The standard reading denies consciousness to animals, which most now find implausible.

Sources

Key sources
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)
Descartes’s Substance Dualism
  • Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes (trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch) (1984)
  • Principles of Philosophy, René Descartes (trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch) (1985)
  • The Passions of the Soul, René Descartes (trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch) (1985)

More comparisons

Crick and Koch’s NCC vs …

Descartes’s Substance Dualism vs …

All head-to-head comparisons →