> Uh, no. The reason why you need a "conscious" universe is precisely beause humans aren't special. In a conscious universe model, the brain "abuses" the laws of physics including whatever laws that relate to consciousness to result in an organism with higher environmental fitness.

> I am more than willing to consider a robot or a wet piece of cloth as conscious, but the problem is that you need to somehow unify these incredibly different experiences as conscious.

I have no idea what you mean. What does it mean to "abuse" the laws of physics? Why would you need to do that to improve an organism's environmental fitness, compared to simply developing a complex nervous system by natural selection? Do you consider these to be the same thing? Where does the "conscious universe" come up in that process?

> The people who believe that consciousness is just the result of processes in the brain also believe that a computer can become conscious given the right program, but this is nonsense, because the computer hardware already has all of the hardware to perform lesser forms of consciousness.

That sentence doesn't make sense to me either. How does the second proposition contradict the first?

"Consciousness" isn't a clearly defined line, it's a pattern of thoughts that happen in a system complex enough to be aware of itself and its surroundings. I'm conscious because my thoughts include the fact that I exist and that I am thinking, and that fact influences my thoughts. A regular computer isn't there because it follows a program without knowing that it's doing it, or having any kinds of thoughts about itself. When we program a computer to do that (and current computers are probably physically capable of some form of that, as you say), then they will fit the definition of consciousness.

> After all, if you could somehow simulate the brain of a crow or any other animal, you would not be able to understand what the animal is saying and discount it's consciousness the same way we discount the consciousness of farm animals.

Why would I want to discount the consciousness of a crow? What does the fact that some people discount the consciousness of farm animals have to do with this discussion? I really don't understand what point you're making. It seems that you're trying to put words in my mouth, creating a contradiction with things I didn't say.

Crows are probably conscious, farm animals are probably conscious, and a wet piece of cloth or a plant aren't. That's because the cloth and the plant don't have a nervous system capable of holding the thought that it itself exists. I'm open to changing my mind about plants if we discover one that does.

> So for me, your explanation is the one that makes humans special.

Defining a concept necessarily makes some things special in the context of that definition. That's what a definition does. Consciousness has a somewhat vague definition that clearly applies to humans and some mammals, while it doesn't apply to rocks and plants. Your objection is like saying that a rock is "alive" because otherwise the definition of "life" would make humans special. Of course it does! It makes every living thing "special" in that it fits the definition, while other things don't. Again, that's the whole point of defining a concept: discriminating the objects that display it from the objects that don't.