There are definitively varying degrees of consciousness and self-awareness. I don't think that someone who is an 1. atheist 2. knows that consciousness is made by the brain neurons or some processes; has the same self-awareness as someone who is 1. religious and 2. thinks he has a soul.
Look at living creature. Look at a cell. It is a living thing but it is made by much fewer atoms and molecules than the human body. It is interesting to watch what we consider "dead matter" being alive. They are both matter and atoms at the end of day.
Is a cell trying to survive its environment inside the human body conscious? Is a human trying to survive its environment inside the country/system conscious? Is a country trying to survive its environment inside planet earth conscious?
The thing about consciousness is that you can't really define it. You know you have it because you experience it. You assume that other humans have it because they are like you. You might further assume that certain other beings have it because they are also like you in many ways (though you'd likely disagree with the idea that theirs is as meaningful as yours).
But you can't prove any of it. You can only say that certain things react to certain stimuli in certain ways, which describes everything in the universe. Is it really that much of a stretch, then, to suggest that perhaps everything in the universe has some form of awareness, some experience of things, albeit probably too different from our own to comprehend?
Here's my point: there is literally no measurement you can perform that will help you draw this line, because the experience of consciousness is entirely subjective.
Why would matter be magically “conscious”? What possible physical mechanism could that magic be? (beside the absurdity of vibration, I suppose?)
That may not even be true. Octupus brains are constrained to a toroidal geometry because they eat through the doughnut hole. Apparently despite their very large brain sizes and advanced problem solving skills the elements are fairly independent.
Mine is the ability to see a probabilistic future and maybe make decisions about that future. Under that defination all matter is conscience due to its quantum probalistic nature.
I think I'd call what you're describing executive functioning.
I'd imagine one could experience things w/out having any notion about the future, or even an ability to make decisions.
This is complete garbage. Some relationship to the internal frequencies of the brain, ie. its various analog clock tree mechanisms means that because all matter is based on subatomic vibrations rocks and atoms have a degree of consciousness too?
Wow, my laptop running at 2.2GHz(and various other frequencies) must be a supreme being.
Yes, obviously a clock tree is important to sync various neurons together efficiently and where ever there are conflicts, ticks will be lost or (whatever the thought real equivalent is). The more sync'ed the more complex the brain obviously, but whether that is 'consciousness' or just efficiency... or anything else? This writer obviously has no clue. At least they didn't say the brain is a quantum computer because of vibrations.