Please Help Me Understand Consciousness

[Mudhammam]

Victor Stenger wrote a book or paper on the subject, but I haven't read it. He would be a good source for the skeptical viewpoint on the subject though. I know Sam Harris has also made occasional comments on the subject, but I don't know if he's written anything extensive on the subject. Quantum consciousness, like many ideas on consciousness, involves vague intuitions about "what must be" without an actual theoretical mechanism for making that happen.

Stenger wrote both a paper and book on the subject,

The link to the paper entitled The Myth of Quantum Consciousness

http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vsten...usness.pdf

The book which was an expansion of the paper was titled Quantum Gods: Creation, Chaos, and the Search for Cosmic Consciousness

After reading the paper, I still have some questions about Stenger's criticisms. First, he says that John Bell convincingly confirmed the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics... but doesn't the CI state that "the act of measurement causes the set of probabilities to immediately and randomly assume only one of the possible values" (borrowed from Wikipedia)? Secondly, why does Stenger differentiate between "measurements made by inanimate objects" and "observers"? What's the fundamental difference? Isn't the conscious observer still making the measurement, and hence causing state vector collapse, when he/she examines the data output of the inanimate object? If a measurement, which presumably must always start and end with an observer, does indeed cause the set of probabilities to assume a possible value, doesn't this more or less support what mystics are arguing when they invoke QM? Thirdly, what exactly does he mean by a "signal carrying actual information" and how does this relate to non-locality and quantum entanglement? And finally, how exactly does non-locality and quantum entanglement fit in with Special Relativity?

I know this is a bit off the original topic but some would have us believe that consciousness is directly tied to these discoveries and interpretations in physics. I think a better explanation of these would greatly benefit my understanding of why quantum mind theories fail.