Head to head
Crick and Koch’s NCC vs Sam Harris
Crick and Koch’s Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC) and S. Harris’s Mystery of Consciousness, compared field by field from their entries in the Atlas.
At a glance
- Crick and Koch’s NCC belongs to the Materialism family in Kuhn's Landscape of Consciousness, Sam Harris to Challenge.
- They give the same kind of answer on life after death and meaning and purpose.
- On AI consciousness, Crick and Koch’s NCC says “Yes” and Sam Harris says “No”.
- On mind uploading, Crick and Koch’s NCC says “Yes” and Sam Harris says “No”.
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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.
Sam HarrisThis perspective, offered as a challenge rather than a prescriptive theory, frames consciousness as an unbridgeable mystery that cannot be solved by purely physical means. Harris argues that physical descriptions are 'mute' regarding subjective experience; the only thing attesting to sentience is consciousness itself, creating a fundamental explanatory gap. He remains pessimistic that science can dispel this mystery.
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.
Sam HarrisConsciousness is identified as subjectivity or sentience, which is fundamentally mysterious and unexplainable by purely physical processes.
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.
Sam HarrisNoIf consciousness is irreducible subjectivity missing from physical descriptions, then advanced computation (AI, which is purely physical complexity) will fail to generate genuine sentience.
Does consciousness survive death?Both agree
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.
Sam HarrisNoAs a naturalist, Harris implicitly aligns with the view that consciousness is tied to the physical organism, meaning its termination results in permanent non-existence, despite the mystery of its nature while alive.
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.
Sam HarrisNoIf consciousness cannot be explained by purely physical processes, then duplication or uploading of the physical substrate will fail to capture or recreate the essential subjective self.
Does it give life meaning?Both agree
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.
Sam HarrisHumanistic onlyThe mystery does not imply cosmic purpose, but Harris advocates finding personal truths through introspection, aligning with self-discovered (naturalized) spirituality and meaning.
Nature of mind
Ontology
Crick and Koch’s NCCReductive Physicalism/Materialism. The NCC approach is considered macroscopic materialism.
Sam HarrisSkeptical/Mysterianism (Justified: The view asserts the philosophical intractability and unbridgeable nature of the mind-body problem, aligning with core tenets of mysterianism, though without adopting a specific alternative ontology.)
Mind and body
Crick and Koch’s NCCIdentity Theory. Mental states are wholly identical to and fully explained by the physical NCC states.
Sam HarrisUnbridgeable Gap / Non-reductive Correlation (Justified: Harris asserts that while physical processes correlate with consciousness, no analysis of these processes can logically yield a picture of consciousness, leaving an unbridgeable gap.)
Fundamental or emergent
Crick and Koch’s NCCEmergent
Sam HarrisMystery (Justified: Harris declines to fully endorse emergence, stating that while consciousness may be the lawful product of unconscious processing, he does not find that sentence meaningful in explaining sentience.)
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.
Sam HarrisQualia (what it is 'like something' to be) are the phenomenon that physical events are 'mute' about, thus creating the unbridgeable mystery.
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.
Sam HarrisNone (Justified: The core premise is the failure of all current and foreseeable physical/mechanistic principles to explain subjectivity.)
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).
Sam HarrisUnknown/Mysterious (Justified: While consciousness correlates with the brain, the theory explicitly rejects confining the explanation of consciousness to physical location or distribution because the physical world yields no evidence of consciousness.)
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.
Sam HarrisUnknown/Irreducible (Justified: Causal power is not explained by unconscious complexity. The presence of sentience is an ultimate mystery rather than a functional adaptation that can be described reductively.)
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.
Sam HarrisConceptually Untestable (Justified: If the gap is unbridgeable, as Harris claims, the mystery cannot be dispelled by empirical science as currently practiced.)
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).
Sam HarrisNone (Justified: The framework is a diagnosis of science's failure to address the hard problem and does not propose empirical tests for the mystery itself.)
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.
Sam HarrisIt functions primarily as a critique against reductionism and scientific optimism regarding consciousness, classifying the issue as an ultimate mystery, which reductionists reject as pessimism (mysterianism).
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)
Sam Harris
- The mystery of consciousness (Part I & II), Sam Harris (2011)
- Explorations in Consciousness: Death Psychedelics and Mystical Experience (2023)