There s a lot of excitement about brain-scanning evidence for brain/consciousness
correlations. Although the evidence is new, the idea isn't: Descartes formulated it nearly
400 years ago. However, he didn't regard mind-brain correlations as explanations and
neither should we.
Mere correlation between events in two domains is not enough for the one to be used as
an explanation of the other. In addition, we need systematicity, isomorphism, and plausible
(ideally, predictive) counterfactual conditionals.
There are a few (very few) examples where we already have those features, in respect of
correlations between brain events and consciousness. In general, however, they can't be
expected.
Even where we do have them, they leave the most difficult problem about conscious
experience untouched.