[I'm not sure that "consciousness" is the right word either though as there is only one universal consciousness]
I cannot fathom why that statement is not a result of delusion.
Consciousness is clearly an emergent property. All things are emergent properties.
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On another thread Seeker wrote the following and I started to draft a response, but decided not to post anything after looking at what Dan said earlier on that thread :
Luckily there is nothing but what is seen of the mind, your form is only an experience of consciousness, it is not the source of your consciousness. There is no beginning or end, life and death are natural experiences in the "wheel of existence“, but they are only experiences.
Just because you have a lack of memory you think this is your only existence.
Dan wrote:
It's conventially true; it's a valid enough empirical model. It can't be ultimately true, of course, because all empirical models have an artificial cut off point. Even the chemical processes that appear to give rise to thought themselves have causes that are directly connected. Ultimately, thoughts, like all things, are determined by Reality. The only valid answer to the question: What causes [insert whatever]? is Reality (or, not-that-thing). There can be no other completely true answer. Anything less is merely a contingent empirical model of causation that may or may not have practical value. But at a practical level there's no reason to suppose any aspect of consciousness is not an emergent property of specific physical states and therefore does not survive after death.
That said, consciousness itself in not an emergent property of a thing, or a self. Consciousnesses is merely the totality of that which appears. Consciousness is its content and nothing else. Thoughts are just appearances arising within consciousness. That, however, does not mean they are at all times chaotic and all the things you wants to characterise them as being. Sometimes they are of a different type, a different variety, a different species. What we call rational, logical, coherent, consistent. To deny this species of thought exists is to deny an obvious part of reality.
What I was going to say:
Consciousness is just like any other named thing. It is due to the creation of additional thingness that comes from the wholeness of connected forms.
The layering of form, as in the number and internal complexity of its distinct parts, produces an exponential affect on the range of potential appearances (properties).
It is not the sum of the form of individual parts, but the existence flow that is created from the interconnectedness and interrelationship of those parts.
• A car can be viewed as a thing that transports, to a dog it might be “a thing that gives shade”, to a spider “a thing that is a home”.
• For us one eye is enough for eyesight, but two enables an ability to measure distance so much better.
• 1 million water atoms in a roof gutter may not flow due to surface tension, but add one more drop and the whole may change form and begin to flow.
Consciousness in all life forms requires memory. Consciousness arises due to the ability of animal minds to experience the past in the present.
A lizard knows what a rock is by recognition, by past experience, it can measure it’s size, shape and location and make decisions about to go around it or perhaps to laze on it etc. It is the same for all things our awareness encounters. Memory based naming/identifying is required.
Without memory, phenomenon may be felt but you would not be able to do anything about it other than react instinctively, automatically with the required reaction to X factors replicated in genes.
The very act of thought itself requires memory.
To gather a concept into ones current conscious state takes time as the mind works out what to present to you, and it needs to store the sub-concept units in the brains temporary memory drive, until they are constructed into a Thought data string/stream and thus ready to be sent to the frontal lobes for valuing and comparison to the learnt "expectation" routines of the ego.
Like a page serving a king, the subconscious mind premeditates the retrieval of names/qualia-recognition, sorts each into a coherent stream (again needing memory to store packets of info) and passes it into the frontal lobes as things are observed or considered, and is preparing to send to fetch other indexed details from memory.
Without this, just what would be left for consciousness to do?
Without consciousness via the ego feeling it is self-possessing, that what it experiences is for the purpose of oneself, which is also just a thing of memory - what would be left for it?
I don’t see why people who believe in some form of universal consciousness or life force find any merit in that, even outside the lack of evidence. If one could not recall anything it would seem utterly pointless to me, the same result as total death.
