Christianity is heading for a full allegorization

[polymath257]

And, once again, suppose that we manage to find the neural correlates to all of these experiences. We can look at the neural activity and say 'this person is experiencing a vivid experience of red'. And, suppose we can do this across the board, for all experiences. Clearly we are quire far from this. But suppose we can. is that not sufficient to explain consciousness? We have the correlates and we know how those correlate to experiences (qualia, if you will). What else is required?

In your example, the explanation would be that certain neurons are firing in a particular pattern that corresponds to having a certain experience. That *is* the explanation.

Scientific theories do more than simply find correlations, they need to explain the behavior.  Correlations don't imply causation.  Otherwise, the hypothesis that ice cream trucks cause drownings would be a confirmed scientific theory.

I think this is a misunderstanding of how hings are explained in science. We cannot observe 'causes'. We can only observe correlations. The causal component is always in the theory. it is a construct, not a basic observation. And what constitutes a 'cause' depends on the theory.

So, when we say that charged particles cause electric fields, ALL we have is the correlation between charged particles and electric fields and a theory that describes how the two are correlated. The same is true for mass and gravity. The theory says that one causes the other, but that is a postulate of the theory, not some detailed mechanism.

Once we have underlying theories, we can 'explain' other things via causality, but when we do so we rely on that underlying theory.

So, we can explain chemical bonding in terms of 'electron sharing', more specifically in terms of the formation of molecular orbitals, but such an explanation relies on the deeper theory of quantum mechanics. We can explain how motors work, but only once we have the underlying theory of electromagnetism.

So, what I think will eventually happen is that we will have neural correlates to conscious experiences to the point that we could 'read minds' by looking at neural behavior. We could then point to specific neural activity and say that is the neural signature of the experience. This can even be tested by having subjects report their experiences.

And, my point is that this would be a perfectly good 'explanation' of conscious experiences in terms of neural behavior in the same way that we can say that the electrons in s system are an explanation for the electric fields observed. No deeper 'explanation' is required past the consistent correlation. What is required is exactly the 'translation table' between neural activity and conscious experience.

In other words, there is *only* a soft problem of consciousness, just like there is only a soft problem of electric fields or of gravity.