But then you are like a block of steel, you are deterministically governed by the laws of physics. Any block of matter arranged just so is conscious in that framing, which differs from the religious framing.
> Any block of matter arranged just so is conscious in that framing, which differs from the religious framing.
That is literally the secular materialist view of consciousness, yes.
2a) I am not like a block of steel, but I know why ("evolution")
In the same way that a camera takes pictures while a block of steel doesn't because someone designed it that way, we are conscious because evolution designed us that way. Conscious people survive better than those knocked unconscious.