dhw: You're ignoring the argument that preceded the conclusion you've quoted. The definition of panpsychism given in the Koch article is: "all matter has some consciousness associated with it, although the degree of consciousness varies enormously, depending on the complexity of the system." -This idea is an extension of the concept that consciousness is atg the quantum level. 'Baby consciousness' is what panpsychism seem to propose. Of course I think a UI (universal consciousness) has been around all the time-> dhw:To me the distinction between deliberate design by a supremely self-aware superintelligence and evolution from minimal (but not non-existent) consciousness to our own is crystal clear ... in analogy to unselfconscious single cell life through multicellularity to self-aware humans.-I think the so-called intelligent cells theory is just a representation of the information packed into the genomes from the start of life. Each active molecule in the cell acts intelligently, and there are thousands of them in each cell!