I don't understand this reply at all.
I still don't understand this whole tread, nor Harris' point actually.
I must be missing several somethings...
In my mind, Harris points out that consciousness is an emergent propery of human brains. OK. He points out that emergent properties cannot be discerned by study of it's constituent parts in isolation. OK. Therefor, we cannot understand the emergent phenomena via it's parts alone? This is obvious.
Stars are emergent properties of hydrogen. But studying hydrogen up close doesn't tell us about sun spots. In this same sense, consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, which is a collection of neurons (among other things). Looking just at the neurons, fails to tell me why exactly I like vanilla more than chocolate. Naturally, because we need to take into account the whole system. Consciousness is not just neurons, it's the whole function of all neurons and the whole system of the brain, in a similar way as to how a hydrogen atom doesn't tell us why there are sun-spots.
Clearly my understanding must be flawed.
Hmmm, I might be misunderstanding your questioning but it seems to me the question Sam is talking about isn't identifying the correlated patterns, but understanding production. We'll understand (shortly, if you measure by decades) which patterns correlate with which qualia - we already do to an incredible extent if we accept the mind-body problem has been with us, as you say, for 3000 years.
What Sam argues is what's unlikely to be discovered is understanding the "Why" of the correlation. Why is this pattern the taste of chocolate, that the taste of vanilla? And if we get even that far, we also have to explain "Why" any pattern, amenable to reductionism, that can be measured quantitatively gives rise to qualitative, seemingly(?) irreducible experience.
IMO we just don't have the cognitive capacity,
something Chomsky concurs with. And it makes sense - why would an animal evolved to survive in its niche, lucky enough to gain dominion over the planet, also be expected to have the user interface w/ reality to answer all questions about reality.
Also in what way are stars emergent from hydrogen, as opposed to constituted from hydrogen + other aspects of reality?
Causality is another domain I'm a pessimist about - we can measure change, the foundation of science IMO, but the "Why" of causation will elude us. I don't think humans will have a clear scientific model of causation, at least not until we are at Progenitor levels of technology so far, far beyond my lifetime.