consciousness?

[Annik]

I suspect you mean to say "No brain, no consciousness."

Unfortunately no one has been able to provide a physical mechanism that links consciousness (however defined) to any unique brain process. It's just an assumption born of naturalistic bias.

At least the idea is not as patently absurd as saying that consciousness is some kind of illusion. If consciousness were an illusion then of what is it an illusion?

Which is worse: Believing in something that exists beyond the physical senses OR denying the direct unmediated evidence of your own experience?

Well, we didn't know exactly what forces drove gravity until very recently, but we knew kind of how gravity works. The reason we haven't completely hammered down the brain is because (1) we only very recently have the technology to actively observe the brain and (2) that the brain is more complex than any super-computer we have constructed. We know that thoughts are communicated through electrical and chemical signals through neurons, but we don't have the whole picture yet. We know, vaguely, how our brains store information. Consciousness is a sticky subject. It's something the helps separate us from "lower" (for lack of a better term) animals. Furthermore, saying that:

Unfortunately no one has been able to provide a physical mechanism that links consciousness (however defined) to any unique brain process. It's just an assumption born of naturalistic bias.

Is just a big flag of reductionist intellectual dishonesty. Does any one, singular part of a computer make the whole thing run? However, in all seriousness, our thoughts are communicated with neurotransmitters, we just don't have the whole story. In fact, there was recently a great leap in research in this area. Scientists were able to record a thought in a living zebrafish's brain. The thought is simple (being just 'food'), but it was recorded none the same. Here is one of the articles on the topic, but google it and you'll also find other versions of the video.

The pint made about taking drugs for depression (or just drugs), ect, is actually a good one (despite any moral outrage). We take these drugs to alter our brain's neurochemistry (in the case of depression drugs, I believe they inhibit the brain's ability to reclaim "unnecessary" neurotransmitters to the brain can enjoy more of a certain neurochemical it is deficient in). This, by extension, is going to alter our moods and our consciousness. Neurochemicals are also what allows the brain to send the electrical signals that work you body and that allow your brain to kind of talk to itself. Without your neurochemisty, you wouldn't be able to function. Now, this isn't to say that all animals are conscious just because they use neurochemicals. It's how the brain and these chemicals interact that is the real star. Baking soda and vinegar are boring until someone puts them together.

In conclusions: No, we don't know everything. However, we know enough that a universal consciousness is silly and we need our brains to experience consciousness. If you want to hear more about what you want to hear and not what is actually going on in the real world, I think you'd find Jung appealing.