Even when I was studying mathematics, physics, and computer science, it always seemed that the problem of consciousness was about the most interesting problem out there for science to come to grips with.

Studying consciousness tells us more about how the world is fundamentally strange. I think we have a few revolutions to go yet before we get to the bottom of it.

What does it mean, exactly, for a given system to be a "neural correlate of consciousness"?

I had the idea that it would be wonderful to be a physicist or a mathematician maybe 500 years ago around the time of Newton when there were really fundamental things just lying around to be discovered.

It probably helps that my background is in the sciences and I can speak the scientists' language.

Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does.

There's certainly nothing original about the observation that conscious experience poses a hard problem.