I know that’s a “That's a non-answer.” I said so because we can only make an attempt on answer. We saw universe can cause itself endlessly. And at some point something immaterial has to start its operation! It is interesting to see some trying to explain consciousness in terms of the neural network of the brain, which may remind us about studying a radio but being unaware the power source, the battery, and coming to the conclusion that the wires generate the current which makes them function. Or It is like looking at the way the horse occasionally behave independently or disobediently, or stop, and ignoring the rider who is in control most of the time!
It seems many things about the mind/consciousness will remain as a mystery! For mind is not meant to know its own make-up, it is a subject, and all other things—including the brain which are obviously the object of study by the mind! From where does the ingenuity of Mind come? Why it thinks the way it does, especially in terms of time and space? For example we have a sense of past and future! When I remember something, I explicitly reach out of the present to something that is explicitly past. In the same way weighing the matters carefully and wisely, I can calculate certain things into the future! Strictly speaking, the sense of the past cannot exist in a physical system. This is consistent with the fact that the physics of time does not allow for tenses: Einstein called the distinction between past, present and future a “stubbornly persistent illusion”.
At what point immaterial entity comes into picture to make ‘inert and sterile bubble with life and the properties” may not be fully understand now. That is understandable. Yet, how far do we know what really happens within our own minds. Suppose you went to a shop in a commercial street in the evening, and are having a dream of it later in the night. And in the dream, you correctly read the name board of the shop you visited yesterday. However, name boards of the nearby shop you see in your dream may not match with reality! This means mind simply recalled what it could and completed the picture with imaginary details (which obviously means that mind is engaged in some creation work). Not only in dream, even in real life mind acts in the same manner. Try to remember a big gathering you attended in the past, and your mind would supply both truth and fabricated information—picture of some people around you in the gathering will be correct and others will be mind’s creation. Then there is another interesting situation. Someone passed a harmful gossip about another, and I passed it to another. Now unlike we always do, pause for a moment and ask “Why did I do that?” and listen for the answer. If you put your mind into real silence, it will tell you: “You passed that harmful information about Mr X because he did not support your ego sometime back.” From where did come this godly answer? Not from the mind which joyfully prompted you to pass the gossip in the first place. But it came from an immaterial part within me which resembles the Supreme Soul without.