I think you've overlooked something here. > You reduce it down to something much more biological, like basic feelings, and then you start building up the compl

I think you've overlooked something here. > You reduce it down to something much more biological, like basic feelings, and then you start building up the complexities. But at this point we're not even sure if the thing you're referring to is the same thing we originally intended to study. This is one of the pitfalls of scientific discussions of consciousness. Usually the first reductionist step appears to substitute the subject under discussion for something entirely different and then proceeds to explain this other thing. "Assume a spherical cow" and all that.