Where did you go to school? It sounds very much like you have a symbolic background. There are many approaches and people are attacking them from different angles. Here are just a couple of resources worth looking at off the top of my head:

Christof Koch at CalTech (hi, virgil) http://www.klab.caltech.edu/~koch/

Larry Yaeger & John Beggs http://www.indiana.edu/~rcapub/v30n2/mindmade.shtml

Of course, Douglas Hofstadter http://www.cogsci.indiana.edu/

Koch, Churchland, etc. speak on consciousness: http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/342