While I am certain there is nothing (too) special about consciousness, it still is a mixture of a large number of inputs (nerves, senses) and complex processing

While I am certain there is nothing (too) special about consciousness, it still is a mixture of a large number of inputs (nerves, senses) and complex processing machinery dealing with constant chemical processes, some of which are slow to respond to chemical changes (like some hormones like TSH which take a few weeks to "stabilize" provided stable FT3/FT4 hormones). Finally, add all of those throughout an entire life up to that point. Basically, we'll make some statistical conclusions, but we won't be able to get fully repeatable nor even measurable conditions to fully understand it ever. Perhaps if we go full Nazi again and experiment on live, unwilling participants. Lest people forget, even with the rest of medicine and much simpler organs we have directly poked and prodded, we are still far away from fully understanding them, and the best of our knowledge borders on "in 90% of cases".