I’m probably in deep water now, but I’ll give it a go. This is just how I see it. This earth/realm is a simulation, like a video game/VR game. So my body is the computer and my brain/mind is the CPU, but someone is playing the game, give the orders through the signals that the CPU is decoding and interpreting and then transform them into understandable messages on the screen and that is the consciousness, aka me/ the eternal spirit.
Will people function without being especially conscious , yeah probably, that is what is known in computer games as NPC’s. The NPC’s just follow their programming without discernment.