Dear SNP Gupta,
Thanks for your kind comments.
You ask a very interesting question about 'brain-dead' people with all hardware working but software not working. I don't know enough about the situation to have an intelligent opinion. I thought I recently read of MRI scans showing consciousness in paralyzed people, in which case it is the output channels that are failing. But the situation is complex and I am uninformed of the details.
You ask how to measure consciousness. If, as I propose, the consciousness field interacts with matter (in cases of most interest, neural networks) then it is the combination of the field plus the logic (i.e., the hardware) that is most measurable as 'intelligence'. The 'raw' or 'bare' consciousness field apart from the operating hardware probably has no 'content' as such. When interacting with my brain, the content is as I see things. When it is my cat, it is as my cat sees things. The 'I' is local in identity, unless the expanded consciousness identifies with the universal whole, as discussed in my essay.
Of course 'what is reality' is an unanswerable question, but if the 'pictures' in our mind originate from external stimuli, then the internal representation may be formed from eye, hand, or any other sense or combined senses. The ions that flow in axons and vesicles that flow across synaptic gaps (i.e., dynamical 3D flows) are sensed by the field (and possibly affected by the field). I tend to believe the representation is very realistic, since there are so many ways to cross check things. It is the repeatability of stimuli that we associate with reality that causes the 'paths' (or patterns) to be reinforced in our brains.
I will happily look at your essay and respond.
Best regards,
Edwin Eugene Klingman