Nice one Will. I agree with you. I used to be religious, then became an atheist actually, but I was always fascinated by the the "hard problem of consciousness" and the more I research it, the more I come to the conclusion that consciousness is inherent to the universe.

And you're right, that doesn't mean you have to believe in "God" or subscribe to any dogma. As you say, Sam Harris, one of the most famous atheists in the world, is a spiritual man whose wife wrote a book on consciousness. I'm just following where the cutting edge science of consciousness as well as philosophy leads me. It may be right or it may be wrong, but it's certainly incorrect to claim as Megan does that there's "no science supporting it".

Part of the problem of science trying to explore consciousness is that as an inherently subjective experience it can't be fully measured from the outside. Because there's always the possibility of "philosophical zombies", where something appears conscious but isn't. Or rather we can never be 100% sure that what we observe and call "consciousness" is in fact what causes consciousness or is a manifestation of it, or an illusion.

I think part of the problem is that when we use the word "consciousness" we tend to think in of a very specific limited form of consciousness - brain consciousness in higher order mammals. But that's not the only form of consciousness there is.