We are no different than computers

[Mudhammam]

I'm surprised at how many people here seem to think there is something fundamentally special about the brain. It is marvelously complex, yes. Our understanding of how consciousness is derived from its processes is not understood at all. But it's just a thing made of atoms; there's nothing magical about it. Just 110 years ago, there was no way to explain how the sun had been radiating all the energy it does for as long as it had. Until E = MC^2, there was no known process that could account for it. Now, it's pretty mundane as far as physics is concerned. I see no reason why it won't be the same with the brain and how consciousness arises from it. In the end, it's just a chunk of matter operating in accordance to physical laws. Won't we figure it out, given enough time?

There is something fundamentally special about the brain in the sense that everything you experience as objects in existence, including space and time, require a mind to take on anything like intelligibility or meaning. I don't understand how one can say there's "nothing magical about it" because "it's just a thing made of atoms," as if our conception of matter is completely understood and known to be this dull "stuff" arranged to a confounding degree and that just exists for no reason whatsoever. Rather, everything we know about biology is that matter at some level is something potentially or actually alive and able to produce awareness of itself, regardless if it's nothing but a result of random chance occurrences moved by the hand of necessity or a feature that is much deeper and even bullt-in to the fabric of universes like ours, as a first or secondary principle. While the discoveries of physics and astronomy have broadened our perspective of matter and have proven mankind's collective genius to be quite extraordinary, these accomplishments start and end with the mind, as everything must, which is why getting to the bottom of what the mind really is poses such a bigger problem---it must inevitably take this unknown phenomenon, the mind, for granted.