WOAH, really? I was only familiar with the Chinese Room argument and some criticisms he had about AI, but I had totally not heard that reductionist nonsense. My co-worker had him at UC for philosophy of mind and had recommended him for that in particular. I am in agreement with your sentiments on the whole connectome thing, but it's only as useless as the claims it tries to make. I'm sure it can have some utility (I honestly can't imagine for what other than just doing it), but nothing seems obvious. As per Searle, he has arguments about mentation and intentionality that I think are appropriate in the debate on consciouness, I'm not an expert by any means, I'm personally trying to fill in the gaps my very materialist education left me with, and some of his stuff seems pretty sound