We do know how to shut consciousness off or suppress it. That's what anesthesia drugs do. Autonomic functions are not affected. Self-awareness and motivated action shut down.
Anaesthesia is fantastic nowadays. But it remains the fact that even very good anaesthetists don't really know how it works.
"Motivated action" shuts down because they paralyse you, using curare (or something more modern, I guess). They don't want you twitching around while they're wielding the scalpel.
Whether Self-awareness shuts down is very hard to say, without being that self. And it does seem clear that people can't lay down memories when they're anaesthetised. So I don't have any way of knowing whether I was awake when they operated on me.
"Motivated action" shuts down because they paralyse you, using curare (or something more modern, I guess). They don't want you twitching around while they're wielding the scalpel.
Whether Self-awareness shuts down is very hard to say, without being that self. And it does seem clear that people can't lay down memories when they're anaesthetised. So I don't have any way of knowing whether I was awake when they operated on me.