On naturalism and consciousness

[Mudhammam]

This quote from the current text I'm reading stuck out to me:

"...but then we have no good reason for saying that material things could not be conscious; nor, finally, for saying that material things could not in themselves give rise to consciousness." - J.L. Mackie, 'The Miracle of Theism'

Yeah, we do: neural networks. The only time consciousness is observed is when there are brains & nervous systems or their equivalent. Consequently...

I'm not sure I follow where it is you disagree. Neural networks, the fact that consciousness is only observed to exist in the presence of brains and nervous systems, supports his statement that "we have no good reason for saying that material things could not... in themselves give rise to consciousness."

Mackie's conclusion at the end of the chapter is that "once we have rejected, as we must, both the extreme materialism that would deny even distinctively mental properties and the complete immaterialism of Berkeley or of phenomenalism, we are stuck with some kind of dualism; and unless this is an absurdly extreme dualism it must admit psychophysical laws or lawlike correlations of some sort."

...doesn't follow. In fact, the reverse is true.

Where's the discrepancy in postulating consciousness as an "emergent property" and one that exists solely as a result of physical processes due to a "fundamental natural law of emergence for awareness" (again, his words)? As I gather it, he supports property dualism but not substance dualism.