consciousness?

[Neo-Scholastic]

The physicalist position is that "felt experiences" are physical events, and thus the mutual interaction is an accepted part of the explanation, leaving nothing extra to be accounted for.

Mutual interaction between what? Your statement tacitly acknowledges that two different things are involved while at the same time asserting that they are the same thing.

The There is essentially zero evidence for the proposition that first-person qualitative experiences are a part of reality in the necessary sense.

Other than the direct, unmediated, and visceral feeling of being alive. I cannot imagine more compelling evidence.Now if you are saying that first-person experiences aren’t a necessary part of material reality, then I agree with you. In physical theories, feelings are not needed to explain behavior or the verbal reports of the subjects. You have to at least try to account for all the phenomena. That approach just pretends the phenomena doesn’t exist.

The only evidence we have for the facts of subjective experience are the claims of that subjectivity as to the veracity, nature, and content of its experience. Nowhere else in science is the existence of a "real" phenomenon so unilaterally accepted in the almost total absence of any actual empirical evidence.

What is empirical mean if not something known from experience? Putting “real” in quotes shows that the maker of the statement excludes any non-material thing from the definition of real. It’s just another way to beg the question.

The physical events of A could just as easily generate the subjective experience of …but no physical theory can exclude it.

No - not "just as easily". [/quote]Then please explain how a physical theory does exclude that possibility. If mental-properties are inert epiphenomena then it doesn’t matter what they are or whether they happen at all.

Moreover, if only physical processes are causal, then thinking, feeling and willing would have no significance and ‘you’ are just along for the ride…

This argument works only if you assume that 'you' are something other than the sum of those electro-chemical reactions. That would be an illusion not supported by evidence we have.[/quote]So if your consciousness self is an illusion, of what is it an illusion?

Changing the description does not alter whether or not the chain of events is composed of mental events versus purely physical ones.

No, it does not. What it does is explain how sensations are felt and how they interact with the causal chain.[/quote]You again ignore chains of mental association, such as: “The intense pain of stubbing made me angry at the table and I remembered the time I kicked a chair and resolved never to do that again, so I choose not to act out my anger.” That statement reports how the sensation of pain started a chain of thoughts linked by meaning and significance.