Shortcut: if you understand German, have some patience with difficult reading and don’t mind jumping around between chapters a lot, you can find most of the required information here.
To arrive at the starting point for what I discovered, you need to understand the basics of Einstein’s as well as Darwin’s work, and you should have fully understood Gödel’s famous proof. Please ignore the derived works of Penrose though, as they only distract from the core ideas.
Additionally you need to fully understand John Conways Turing complete Game of Life. Then you should study deep artificial neural networks and the basics of actual neurology, and follow up with an advanced clinical textbook about frontal brain neurology and psychiatric neurology. But with the latter topics I recommend you ignore all attempts of large scale functional explanations, especially the ones trying to “localize functions” no matter how many fMRI data they claim to back their theories.
Also do not forget to take a close look at Benjamin Libet’s groundbreaking experiment and the various follow-ups. In addition you should learn how holograms work.
Then try to imagine a holographic game of life as would emerge from any suitable neural network; the column structure is essential.
Also look into quantum mechanics with special attendance to the holographic principle and the bell inequalities. (Here too, keep away from Penrose’s ramblings, as they have been thoroughly disproven in that context. The same goes for Stephen Wolfram’s lengthy speculations about the consciousness. Embarrassingly, numerous otherwise respectable mathematicians and physicists at some point in their life have started to ponder this topic with lacking foundations, and often seemingly without ever studying Neurology.)
After that, if you keep strictly to the principles of Occam, Kopernikus and Leibnitz, you might come to the same conclusions as I have (but even if not, it will change your perspective profoundly), of the questions of
Life, the universe and everything (back to the start)
Special thanks to Douglas Adams for discovering the most elegant way of posing THE QUESTION, and for occasionally reminding me that exceptionally few things should be taken seriously, none without humor.