You posed lots of questions that I don't know the answer to, but I can comment on these:
> what makes the matter that constructs my brain "special" to manifest this consciousness?
> how does it differ from any other kind of information processing system, eg. a computer.
Maybe entertain the idea that your brain is not special, and your computer has a consciousness too? Not human consciousness, but some kind of different consciousness.
Ancient spiritual teachings have claimed that everything in nature has a consciousness or at least a "spirit". There's no reason why something as complex as a modern computer (esp. with software) wouldn't have one.
On the other side, you could take the stance that nothing is conscious at all (except perhaps you yourself), and every human is just a zombie-like automaton. After all, there's no hard evidence that other people are conscious except that we all look the same (or similar enough) from the outside.
> what makes the matter that constructs my brain "special" to manifest this consciousness?
> how does it differ from any other kind of information processing system, eg. a computer.
Maybe entertain the idea that your brain is not special, and your computer has a consciousness too? Not human consciousness, but some kind of different consciousness.
Ancient spiritual teachings have claimed that everything in nature has a consciousness or at least a "spirit". There's no reason why something as complex as a modern computer (esp. with software) wouldn't have one.
On the other side, you could take the stance that nothing is conscious at all (except perhaps you yourself), and every human is just a zombie-like automaton. After all, there's no hard evidence that other people are conscious except that we all look the same (or similar enough) from the outside.