Hard to square that idea away with observable concepts like how hormones and brain damage affect people. One could say that the brain does all the computation,

Hard to square that idea away with observable concepts like how hormones and brain damage affect people. One could say that the brain does all the computation, and the link to consciousness is one-way, but if that consciousness-link isn't affecting the physical computation, then that doesn't explain why our brain makes us talk about being conscious. That consciousness-link-thing would be entirely unrelated to why we talk about being conscious and should be called something else.