In Zombies! Zombies? Eliezer mentions that one aspect of consciousness is that it can causally affect the real world, e.g. cause you to say "I feel conscious right now", or result in me typing out these words.
Even if a generally accepted mechanism of consciousness has not been found yet are there any tentative explanations for this "can change world" property? Googling around I was unable to find anything (although Zombies are certainly popular).
I had an idea of how this might work, but just wanted to see if it was worth the effort of writing.
No he's talking about reductionism, the idea that consciousness is a thing that arises from physical laws "naturally", without requiring special consideration in them.
Substance dualism is the claim that consciousness is a thing that exists, but has separate laws controlling its behavior.
Thanks. Corrected. My point still stands, though - it's not what Elezier was talking about in his zombies article.