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Ongoing Discussion of Francis Crick and Christoph

Koch (Vol. 2, No. 1): Commentary by Drakon
Nikolinakos (Athens)
Drakon Derek Nikolinakos

Department of Philosophy and History of Science, University of Athens,

Panepistimioupolis, Athens 15771, Greece, e-mail:
Published online: 09 Jan 2014.

To cite this article: Drakon Derek Nikolinakos (2001) Ongoing Discussion of Francis Crick and Christoph Koch (Vol. 2, No.
1): Commentary by Drakon Nikolinakos (Athens), Neuropsychoanalysis: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Psychoanalysis and
the Neurosciences, 3:1, 101-103, DOI: 10.1080/15294145.2001.10773341
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2001.10773341

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Ongoing Discussion (Vol. 2, No.1)

lar neurophysiological process underlies dreams, it
must be shown to be temporally coextensive with
dreaming. What is required is that the neurophysiological process begins when the dream begins, is sustained
during the dream and ends when the dream ends. Or,
if the process is hypothesized to stimulate dreams or
to terminate them, it must be temporally congruent
too. It will certainly clarify theory if the separate contents of a single dream are shown to be correlated with
either a single neurophysiological process or several
different ones. It will also move matters along if the
debaters acknowledge that they are talking about different levels. What needs to be done is not just to
correlate
neurophysiology-neurochemistry
with
dreaming but to show how neurophysiology-neurochemistry determines in an upward fashion specific
content and how specific content relates to memories
and wishes. It would help enormously if Hobson
would present a specimen dream and then discuss it
at all levels.

References
Aronson, L. (1970), Functional evolution of the forebrain
in lower vertebrates. In: Development and Evolution of
Behavior, ed. L. Aronson, E. Tobach, D. Lehrman, and
J. Rosenblatt. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.
Brown, J. (1988), The Life of the Mind. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

101
Freud, S. (1891), On Aphasia. New York: International
Universities Press, 1953.
- - - (1900), The Interpretation of Dreams. Standard
Edition, 4&5. London: Hogarth Press, 1953.
Hobson, J. A., Pace-Schott, C. F., & Strickland, R. (2000),
Dreaming and brain: Toward a cognitive neuroscience
of conscious states. Behav. & Brain Sci., 23(6):793-842.
Kaplan-Solms, K., & Solms, M. (2000), Clinical Studies in
Neuro-Psychoanalysis. London: Karnac Books.
Llinas, R., & Pare, D. (1991), Of dreaming and wakefulness. Neurosci, 44:521-535.
Mancia, M. (1995), One possible function of sleep. Behav.
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theory of consciousness. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn.,
45:866-890.
Salthe, S., Ed. (1985), Evolving Hierarchical Systems. New
York: Columbia University Press.
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MA: MIT Press.
Smolin, L. (1997), The Life of the Cosmos. New York:
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Wigner, E. P. (1964), Events, laws of nature, and invariance
principles. Science, 145:995-999.

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Ongoing Discussion of Francis Crick and Christoph Koch (Vol. 2, No.1):

Commentary by Drakon Nikolinakos (Athens)

The Target Article

The main point I would like to raise concerns the presence of a plurality of metaphysical commitments in the
target article. These commitments seem to arise because
of the different ways in which the term correlation and
its cognates may be used. I will briefly describe some
of these in order to show what these commitments are.
This may place us in a better position to appreciate some
of the problems that characterize the search for the neural correlates of consciousness.
Drakon Derek Nikolinakos, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and History of Science at the University of Athens, Greece.

It is possible to use the term in a neutral manner

to indicate coinstantiation and covariation of two
kinds of states/properties (e.g., mental and physical).
In its neutral use, the term need not commit us to a
specific kind of relation between the two kinds. But
once we depart from this neutral position the relation
of correlation may be fleshed out in a variety of directions some of which are: causal interactionism, preestablished harmony, occasionalism, the doubleaspect theory, epiphenomenalism, the identity theory,
and emergentism (Kim, 1996). The first option is typically associated with Cartesian dualism; this cannot
be a viable option for the authors since one of them
has rejected it in the past (Crick, 1994). The options
of preestablished harmony and occasionalism are also

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102
not viable alternatives since they both involve God's
intervention; such a solution is incompatible with the
naturalistic framework within which the authors develop their views. Epiphenomenalism could be an option, but I am not sure whether the authors would be
prepared to adopt it; however, Jackendoff (2000)
thinks otherwise. That leaves us with double-aspect
theory, identity theory, and emergentism.
Double-aspect theory does not seem to be an option since it is at odds with any expression of the
reductionist program. The authors seem to gravitate
toward the final two positions, those of the identity
theory, which is traditionally the most dominant expression of reductionism, and emergentism. Their
commitment to reductionism is expressed with the
claim that the "hard problem of consciousness is unlikely to yield to a purely logical or philosophical attack. Rather, it needs to be approached in a
reductionist, scientific manner" (p. 10). This approach, along with the identity theory that is typically
associated with it, has been defended in the past by
one of the authors (Crick, 1994). The relation between
mental and physical states or properties is, according
to this theory, one of identity. Claims of the "nothing
but" variety are typically understood as identity
claims.
However, the authors also seem to be committed
to an alternative position, that of emergentism. They
maintain "we are not implying (and have never done
so) that consciousness can be found at the level of
individual neurons but that consciousness emerges out
of the firing behavior of a specific and identifiable
subset of all neurons ..." (p. 3). According to one
reading of the doctrine of emergentism, mental phenomena arise out of physical phenomena and there is
no further explanation that may be provided of this
fact. If this thesis is accepted, however, there is no
role that science can play since no further explanation
is available about the consciousness-brain relation.
There are also two other related emergentist theses.
According to the one, mental phenomena are irreducible to the physical processes from which they emerge
and according to the other, mental properties cannot
be predicted from the knowledge of the physical basis
that supports them. These theses, however, are at odds
with the reductionist program (Beckermann, Flohr,
and Kim, 1992). It appears that the current popularity
of emergentism goes hand in hand with the criticisms
leveled against reductionism during the past few decades (Kim, 1998).
Another version of emergentism, the supervenience thesis (Kim, 1996), could be the one that the

Drakon Nikolinakos
authors would like to defend since it emphasizes the
dependence of the mental on, and its determination by,
the physical. However, the defenders and opponents of
this position perceive it as a view that is at odds with
reductionism. Perhaps a different reading of the supervenience thesis, a causalist one, according to which
there is a causal relation between mental and physical
states, would be more appealing. The authors often
express themselves along these lines. They claim that
there could be a certain subset of neurons that is "responsible for generating conscious experience," and
that qualia are most "probably caused by the activity
of a small fraction of all the neurons in the brain." All
these expressions point toward a causal relationship
between mental and physical states. However, this
reading of the supervenience thesis is also in opposition to reductionism and the identity theory.
If I am reading the authors correctly, then, there
seems to be a variety of metaphysical commitments
in their article, which suggests that there is a need for
some clarifications. It should also be noted that, if
the real metaphysical commitments of the authors are
expressed with reductionism and the identity theory,
they do not keep such good metaphysical company
with Freud. The reason is that Freud, as indicated in
the passage quoted on p. 4 of the target article, appears
to adhere to a much more metaphysically neutral position. According to this position, there is coinstantiation and covariation between neural and mental states/
properties. Since no further attempt is being made to
elaborate why and how this correlation between the
two sets takes place, the position remains metaphysically neutral.
The following statement is confusing: "primates
are not directly aware of the neural activity in cortical
area VI, the primary visual cortex" (p. 3). It is not
clear what sense to make of the phrase' 'directly aware
of neural activity" since no one claims that there is
such awareness except in some rare cases (e.g., when
due to an abnormality of blood vessels in the visual
cortex the subject may hear himself seeing when his
eyes are open). It could be said that in such cases one
has auditory awareness of cortical activity in the visual
cortex. However, I doubt that this is what the authors
have in mind.
The authors, following Jackendoff's adoption of
Marr's analysis of the visual system's shape detection,
suggest that we are directly conscious of an enriched
2- 1/2D sketch and not of a 3D model. For example,
when we look at a person's face we are directly conscious of the shape, color, movement, and so on, of

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Ongoing Discussion (Vol. 2, No.1)

the front of her face, but we are not directly conscious
of the back of her head.
However, the 2-lf2D sketch is not the content of
a visual conscious state. As Marr (1982, p. 279)
pointed out, the existence of the 2-lf2D sketch is something of which we are not certain. It is a representation
whose existence is postulated by the theory in order to
explain how the visual system processes information it
obtains from the environment. In addition, it should
also be kept in mind that, as the authors indicate,
Marr's proposal only concerned the detection of
shape. Therefore, if the proposal that we are conscious
of an enriched 2-lf2D sketch is to have any research
value, it will have to be articulated more fully.

Observations on the Other Commentaries

Humphrey considers ambiguous pictures, such as the
Necker cube and the duck-rabbit pictures. He claims
that the sensory part remains the same while there is
a shift in perceptual content; for example, one may
first see it as a duck, and then one may see it as a
rabbit. It is not clear that the sensory part remains the
same. If we pay close attention to what we do in these
circumstances, it appears that there is a slight shift of
the gaze with every alteration of perceptual content.
That is, in order to obtain a shift from the one perceptual content to the other, the focus of visual attention
must shift to another point on the picture. It seems
that in order to see the duck, the gaze has to shift
toward the beak part of the picture on the left, and in
order to see the rabbit the gaze has to shift toward the
right part of the picture where the rabbit's mouth is;
something analogous seems to occur with the Necker
cube picture. I take this to suggest that there is a slight
shift in the sensory aspect of the experience when
watching these pictures and that this is caused by the
different images that are projected on the retina. This
is a claim that can be tested experimentally.

Epiphenomenalism
Epiphenomenalism appears to have become a rather
popular metaphysical option since an increasing number of researchers adopt it with ease. Jackendoff's
reading of the target article, as well as his own theory,
are developed along these lines (2000). The central
claim of this position is that the real work is done
by the neural correlates of consciousness and that the
mental properties of the brain are inert since they have
no causal powers. However, even if we assume that
this position is coherent, it may not be so appealing if
we consider the cost. By giving up the notion of mental
causation we have given up, among other things, a
fundamental way of looking at ourselves, that is, as
agents who are largely responsible for their actions.
Since this seems to be a rather heavy price to pay, it
may be more advisable to try to retain the notion of
mental causation within a metaphysical framework
that would support it. There are many such approaches
which, their respective merits aside, do try to explain
mental causation rather than brush it aside.

References
Beckermann, A., Flohr, H., & Kim, J., Eds. (1992), Emergence or Reduction? Essays on the Prospects of Nonreductive Physicalism. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Crick, F. (1994), The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific
Searchfor the Soul. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
Jackendorf, R. (2000), Commentary. This Journal, 2(1):
17-20.
Kim, J. (1996), Philosophy of Mind. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
- - - (1998), Mind in a Physical World. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
Marr, D. (1982), Vision. New York: W. H. Freeman.

Department of Philosophy and

History of Science
University of Athens
Panepistimioupolis
Athens 15771
Greece
e-mail: dnikolin@cc.uoa.gr