NCC are compatible with very different proposals for a solution of the mind-brain problem. The
existence of NCC can and does not prove that a version of the mind-brain identity theory is right,
although this existence is perfectly in harmony with it. But classical dualists would still argue that
the correlates are just a consequence or a sign of the brain's interaction with an ontologically
independent mind as renowned neuroscientists like Charles Sherrington, Wilder Penfield and John
Eccles thought. A parallelism without interactions of neuronal and conscious events in the style of
Leibniz is still possible, too, and it is even favoured in a somewhat more down-to-earth fashion by
neuropsychologists like Detlev Linke and Martin Kurthen (1988). And epiphenomenalism, which
holds only a one-way influence from matter to mind but not vice versa, is not falsified by the
discoveries of NCC, either. Thus, one may subscribe to the existence of NCC and can still
postulate that one dualism or another is true. This seems to be both advantageous (for dualists)
and detrimental (for naturalists).
Of course these issues depend on our notion of causality. If for example interactionism is true,
causality cannot solely be restricted to physical events like transfer of energy or momentum. On the
contrary, a dualist has to postulate the existence of (up to) four qualitatively different cause-and-
effect relations: interactions between physical events, interactions between mental events and,
furthermore, physical-mental and mental-physical interactions. Parallelism requires the existence of
two distinct sorts of causal relations (physical-physical and mental-mental interactions), so does
epiphenomenalism (physical-physical and physical-mental interactions). Naturalism and, maybe,
idealism, needs just one. If we subscribe to a Humean account of causality instead, a description of
correlations is all there is. Therefore, the existence of NCC would be compatible with most of the
positions regarding the mind-brain problem.
Please note: I do not say that all these positions are equally plausible. My claim is only that the
existence of NCC alone cannot prove or disprove any of these positions. Thus, philosophical
arguments are needed, and this is just one reason for the importance of neurophilosophy.
III.3. "Shades Of Truth" - Brain Imaging Is Not Mind-Reading
The existence of NCC restricts nomological and identity accounts for the mind-brain problem
because of the already mentioned inter- and intraindividual variations and the externalist content of
representations. We cannot strictly define identity conditions except by means of potentially infinite
- or at least impracticably many - conjunctions. That is why the modern brain imaging techniques
only show some more or less crude categories or types of consciousness (or contents of
consciousness) like logical reasoning in dorsal frontal cortex, different sensory modes for example
in different parts of the occipital, temporal and parietal cortices, or memories of different syntactic
forms in the temporal lobe - but not the actual content of the logical reasoning or the sensory
experience or the words. Thus, strictly speaking, brain-reading will never turn into mind-reading.
Even if we could scan all the brain structures and neural events of an individual with any desired
resolution and without destroying it (which seems to be practically impossible), we would still not
know what kind of experience or thought this individual exactly had "in mind" at a given moment of
time. And this is not only true because we were missing his or her environment and the relevant
past and we cannot falsify strange possibilities like inverted or absent qualia, but also because of
the chaotic, i.e., nonlinear dynamics of the neural events and the potentially holistic nature of mental
contents.
But these restrictions do not imply NCC research is useless or irrelevant for philosophical
reasoning. On the contrary, the investigation of NCC can strengthen or refute empirical arguments
for one or the other position in our discussion about the relation between brain and mind and the
nature of consciousness. For example, let's take the interactionist dualism of the late Sir John
Eccles, who was a winner of the Nobel prize for physiology in 1963, as a case study.
III.4. "Oh, Hello Mr. Soul, I Dropped By To Pick Up A Reason" - A Case Study
Eccles has started brain research because of religious reasons (Eccles, 1994a, p. 13, Popper
and Eccles, 1977, p. 357) and presented probably the most elaborated neurophilosophical proposal
for a place of interactionism in a Cartesian tradition, believing that mind is "independent" and
"autonomous" from the world of matter-energy (Eccles, 1994a, p. 102 and 80). He has developed
his speculations on "the Self and its brain" from 1951 until recent years and wanted "to challenge