Maybe we could first ask, is biology inherently sentient and is our specific experience of consciousness emergent from that? Which goes far beyond the brain.
Consider that our consciousness functions as a sequence of perceptions, which is logically a consequence of having to navigate.
This creates the effect that we see time as the point of the present moving past to future, rather than change turning future to past. It's a bit like seeing the cosmos spinning east to west, when it's the earth turning west to east. Given much of theoretical physics is still hung up on the narrative flow, it's not like the sciences are all knowing.
If plants were to describe time, it would likely be as cycles of expansion and consolidation. The plant mathematicians would model it like rings of a tree.
While we tend to distill consciousness down to a product of the brain, it should be noted that it exists as the interface between the body and its world, as we are no more fully aware of what is going on in our bodies, as what is going on in the larger world.
Is consciousness the hardware, or the software?
On the issue of time, there is no literal dimension of time, because the past is consumed by the present, to inform and drive it. Causality and conservation of energy. Cause becomes effect.
Energy is "conserved," because it is the present, creating time. So energy, as present, goes past to future, while the patterns generated go future to past.
Think on this; Energy drives the wave, while the fluctuations rise and fall. No tiny strings necessary.
Consciousness also goes past to future, while the perceptions, emotions and thoughts giving it form and structure go future to past. Though it's the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems processing the energy, while the central nervous system, the aforementioned brain, sorts the information.
So it would seem consciousness exists as a sort of energy. Yet our brains are hung up on the patterns being generated. Which are, effectively, shadows on the wall.
As Emerson put it, "We are but thickened light."
Is this energy strictly confined to our brains? We all seem to possess these flat wireless devices, capable of transmitting information through radio waves. One would think, given a few billion years of evolution, nature could have used something similar.
Or does she and it's our quantized, atomized, individualized, monetized, reductionist worldview that hides these more ephemeral aspects from our inquiring minds?
In which case, is consciousness strictly in our brains, or is it in our brains like the internet is in our phones?
I think it safe to say, any self respecting scientist would ignore issues of this sort. Stick to the field and study the details.
