My interests started about in science and in mathematics, I always thought I was going to be a mathematician.

Actually, I think most people accept the existence of qualia.

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

Things are still in early stages, but one can imagine that as we build up and systematize our theories of these associations, and try to boil them down to their core, the result might point us toward the sort of fundamental principles I advocate.

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.

My interests started about in science and in mathematics, I always thought I was going to be a mathematician.

Actually, I think my view is compatible with much of the work going on now in neuroscience and psychology, where people are studying the relationship of consciousness to neural and cognitive processes without really trying to reduce it to those processes.