Mind/matter duality

[little_monkey]

This is part of the problem. We cannot know to what degree various organisms actually experience their world as we do, rather than just being organic machines.

My personal belief is that consciousness scales with the complexity of data-processing an organism can do, which you also seem to be implying. However, is there an "atomic" consciousness which is irreducible and still organic (requiring at least 1 nerve for example), or is it possible that on a primitive level, a kind of basic "awareness" exists where ANY two particles are brought into a relation with each other-- say by a chemical bond, or by gravity?

In the latter case, then there is an intrinsic dualism between information and awareness. This wouldn't surprise me, because now we have spacetime, and wave-particles. Why not wave-particle-mind? This would fit in with some of the QM experiments.

I don't think that self-awareness and free will will be found at the atomic level, and nor at the individual cell level, but more with configurations of gazillions of cells such as neurons and synapses. Look at Gabrielle Giffords who was shot in the head, suffered extensive damage, but recovered a good part of all of her faculties. Some experts have said had the bullet gone a few millimeters either to the right or the left, and she wouldn't have made it alive or never recovered and would have remained in a vegetable state.