I think we are really close .
I completely agree.
This is why I am so intrigued with Tegmark, who rejects the notion that an extra ingredient is needed for “consciousness”, as implied by Wigner’s “hard question” of consciousness.
Tegmark posits that instead of asking the hard question without knowing what we are asking for, we and most other Eukaryotic life forms already have all the necessary equipment and configuration in our neural - brain networks for an “emergent” consciousness and that we should be concentrating on the “hard facts” which can be established by closer examination of the brain processes and its interaction with the body’s neural network. The hard fact is that we ARE CONSCIOUS and therefore must have all the necessary ingredients for consciousness.
I believe science has already found at least one common denominator data processor present in all conscious organisms. Microtubules.
Microtubules are variable electrochemical data processors and should answer to the natural laws of electrochemical physics ( mathematical functions).
hence the natural alliance of an anesthesiologist (Hameroff) and a physicist (Penrose)
Hameroff and Penrose are advancing the concept of emergent consciousness in their Theory of ORCH OR (orchestrated objective reduction)
see Are Microtubules the Brain of the Neuron
But that is a whole thread in itself.
see The electrical blueprints that orchestrate life | Michael Levin - #14 by write4u