consciousness?

[Angrboda]

I know that our consciousness is most likely a result of chemical and electrical interactions in our brains, and evolution as well, but still I find consciousness to be so much more beautiful than that; I just can't believe that the self-awareness of a collection of stardust particles is exclusively a result of some accidental, probabilistic events occurring on a small planet in this cold and dark universe without having any kind of a planner (and purpose) behind it. It's possible, but seems very unlikely to me.

You do realize that this is nothing but an argument from ignorance, correct? I view it as little more than "We don't know, therefore let's let our imaginations run wild" - not that there's anything wrong with imagination, unless it's being used as a proxy for knowledge.

Well ... I call that inductive reasoning, not ignorance.

Induction involves reasoning from the known to the unknown (from a pattern in a small sample to a pattern in the total sample, for example). Since you are attempting to reason from an unknown (the nature of consciousness) to an unknown, yours is not an example of induction, but is, as noted, the fallacy of argument from ignorance.

Regardless of the ultimate answer, we have good evidence that the brain is at least involved in consciousness as manipulation of the brain produces effects on consciousness. It's possible that the brain is not entirely responsible for consciousness. (It's also possible that the effect that manipulating the brain has on consciousness is not a result of the brain being partially involved in consciousness, but such a view seems to require embracing the doctrine of radical skepticism, and so is essentially biting your nose off to spite your face.) So long as we accept that the brain is partially responsible for what we experience, it's a valid supposition that the brain is entirely responsible for consciousness, as this is reasoning from the known to the unknown and is thus a legitimate inductive inference, even if it ultimately proves to be untrue. However, reasoning from what is not known about consciousness, that it is not known to reside solely in the brain, to the conclusion that consciousness results from processes other than those of the brain, outside of its mechanism, is another example of reasoning from the unknown to the unknown, and, if embraced, would be another example of the fallacy of argument from ignorance.