I suppose I am at the beginning of asking this question out loud, and it has brought on some interesting discussions with my friends and family.

Although nobody has a clear answer on this subject (globally it seems, not only in the local one I'm exploring), the variety of answers and debates it has led to has been very exciting. On the other hand, I am a bit disappointed that none has been able to bring anything more insightful than I could find via exploring the possibilities by digging around on Wikipedia.

In fact, one question that I had been wondering, which is, at what point does an analogous conscious experience appear in terms of the quantum to human scale of complexity, has been asked already in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F by Thomas Nagel. I still wonder what it is like to be a planarian, or a fly on the wall of a board meeting (audio fidelity must suck).