I am very sympathetic towards what you are trying to do, but currently the scientific approach to consciousness hasn't made much progress. It seems to be perpetuating a division of the world into two entrenched camps - physicalist and idealist.
We commit to kinds of error. One is error of conclusion and the other one is error of function. In the case consciousness, the goal is like error of conclusion. In science, there so many error of conclusion on consciousness. Hence it is hard to accept.
Consciousness and unconsciousness are two states of the human mind. It is the spirit behind the mind which makes the mind conscious. When the mind detach from the spirit, it becomes unconscious. In the following article, word consciousness is used in the sense of Spirit This article discuss the connection between consciousness (spirit) and matter (energy).
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Chapter Consciousness and energy
Dear Charles Whitehead
I argue at length in my "A Human Ethogram ..." ("Human Ethology and Development" Project) that many key fundamental (foundational) 'assumptions' of major general psychology/developmental psychology/personality psychology theories are demonstrably IN FACT conclusions rather than assumptions. Thus, hopelessly skewing the outlook on, and search for, relevant 'causes'. I argue this in complete detail in that long "Human Ethogram ... " paper.
My point , for HERE, is: though consciousness may be an especially difficult question, the topic is not unique in having conclusions operating in an incorrect role (being there and being bad, even as "pseudo-assumptions"). It is typical in psychology that this occurs in answering just about all major questions. (I believe these problems are due to a "Western" civilization tendency to very quickly and gladly (but inappropriately) "jump" to hypothetico-deductive (h-p) systems before there is a mature collection of direct observations (and via inductive work) -- i.e. long before h-p systems are necessary AND, when they are not necessary, they skew everything they address with needless a priori junk. It happens again and again and again, with about nobody learning how not to do this; no lesson ever seems to be learned with regard to this problem.)
I will say, though, that the Project you posted your question under is particularly strange; but I use any opportunity to get on my "soapbox" about these bad characteristics of conceptualization and of theory. I actually have no intention of dignifying the nature of the Project and perhaps should remove my Answer even to your question because it somehow stems from the Project.
If not scientific what other empirically valid approach to consciousness could there be?
And when I say scientific, I still take a broader approach than some. I have introduced a neuroanthropological framework (Domínguez 2012) for studying the relationship between culture, self and brain that recognises there is an epistemological loop between the nomothetic, classic scientific approach and the humanistic hermeneutic approach.
Admittedly, this perspective does not fully overcome the physicalist and idealist separation, but it aims to establish a bridge between them. In place of a dualism, it introduces a dialogue. I call it a 'dialectical imperative'.
I regard this perspective as being two faceted: scientific humanism and humanistic science. However, it is still based on rationalism and empiricism (and importantly, it is thoroughly materialistic and evidence based).
Even if we take the most restrictive, classic sense of science, I am confident that the progress science has made on the problem of consciousness in the last 50 years is still very significant. There are very exciting developments in computational neuroscience, for example, to continue this process including IIT, GNWS, HOT, prediction error minimisation.
That said, the quantum level is clearly the wrong level at which consciousness can be meaningfully understood (incidentally, no backdoor here for finding the soul or any such pseudoscience). Also, an evolutionary understanding of consciousness would preclude a view of this concept as "fundamental, timeless and spaceless." See a relevant critique by Edelman in Bright Air, Brilliant Fire (1992).
I note that theoretical physicists currently think that "information" is the fundamental substrate of reality, and matter and energy are incidentals. And they mean bits - sequences of ones and zeros like the stuff in your computer. Google John Wheeler's "It from bit", Leonard Susskind, and the holographic principle (our universe that we experience as three dimensional is actually a two dimensional hologram coded in bits on its "event horizon"). In the age of AI, what else would you expect?