Conciousness is a functionality of the human brain.
No brain no conciousness. Damage a brain in certain areas and you are a vegetable.

So what is nicely called soul is what it actually ment by beeing conscious.

The brain is an organ made of neurons, their connections and chemical
and metabolical processes to sustain this organ.

Physics/Neurobiology/Biochemistry can describe Neurons to a somewhat good extend.
What is still very hard (because you cant just take a working human brain apart an play around)
is to understand the large scale information processing network.
It very complex, like looking at a smartphone having only 18th century equipment:
You can tell that there is electricity, what materials its roughly made of,
there is something processing (corrupting it will stop processing)
and there are many connectors. But there is no way yet of knowing
how the CPU works, and even less how its programmed.

Anyway. Consciousness is a physical property, relying on
complex information processing. based on already good understood physical processes in the micro scale.
Not some "outer dimension" or "metaphysical" process.
Also not a quantum physical process (the quantum effects have
no effect in the macro scale of a Neuron, they statistically
even out)

its Just that we don't understand the information processing
system behind it yet.
But we do know how its operating in the micro scale in general.
Once its understood (and one has the huge mapping data) it could be even simulated on a Turing machine.
Its not special, just complex.

Also the Kurzweilian "singularity" will not happen just
because out computers will be so damn fast in the future.
Its not a question of processing power (thats just a convenience
of having the machines work faster)
First the programming must be understood.
Any simulation can work on current computers, they just need
much longer and longer tape drives to do it than in the future. The output is the same.
You can even render a Crysis frame on a C64, when you give it
enough memory to swap data to... and wait long enough.


I also doubt that there is a specific area of the brain that
is the councious part. Its probably a multi-module setup.
Damaging one part impairs the consciousness as whole, while
keeping it still enabled. Up to the point where too many
or too important modules are dysfunctional.
Probably where the brain can not self reflect (receiving and processing its own information), and only acts
on some lower instincts.


You can do that already. Just check how many calories your brain uses. The part actually used for information processing
is what your consciousness uses, and which warms your hat in winter. Less than your PC right now.