Evolution

[The Grand Nudger]

My understanding is that evolution is driven by the desire to be free from that chain of imperfection.
The physical aspect is only the result of our progress or failing.

Your understanding is wholly incorrect. Whatever it is you're babbling about with avalanches and IRL cabbage patch kids and chains has nothing to do with evolution. If we're going to discuss that, instead..come up with a different name for it.

The "physical aspect", in point of fact, is the -only- aspect described by evolutionary theory. The rest is whatever religion you found at the bottom of your fruit loops.

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I think it's interesting to ponder how consciousness might have come about in the evolutionary process. Why would consciousness be selected for? It's a good question.

It is, another good one..is why or how it could be selected against.  It's worthwhile to note that we know of no sessile organisms that possess the trait.  

Would you agree that a bacterium has little or nothing of what we would call consciousness? Consider simple, single-celled organisms. There's no reason to think they are any more conscious than any one of our particular cells, right?

Agreed. 

To me, the answer is simple: consciousness was selected for in humans and other vertebrates. It serves no purpose for simple life forms and therefore was not selected for.

I'm an optimist..but, I think that if simple(r*) organisms were conscious it would be as useful to them as it is to us.  The practical utility of conscious experience surrounds you.  Plants don't possess it because anything that would have lead to it would have been actively selected against despite it's utility on grounds of it's sheer liability. 

A bit off the original topic, but it's an interesting question. Does sensation alone lead to consciousness, or are cognitive abilities required too? My first answer is that sensation alone = consciousness, but I could be wrong about that. I haven't really thought about it much. Any thoughts?

Sensation, entirely unlike consciousness...is ubiquitous, even among (especially among) sessile organisms, like plants.