> >If consciousness can be effected through complex reactions of matter, all matter must be at least infinitesimally self-aware. How then should this affect the way we treat all matter, animate or otherwise?
>
> First, let me try to clarify. Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think what you're saying is that "Since some matter, when put through complex reactions, yeild conciousness. Therefore ALL matter must have some consciousness."

Hm. That's not exactly what I had in mind, but it is what I said. Nor was I thinking along the decomposition fallacy lines which gremlinn explained. This is hard to say, since I don't actually believe it. How about:

While the arrangement and reactions of some matter yield full consciousness, does it necessarily create it? If so, out of what? It seems more likely to me that it would be a property of the matter that is accentuated by the arrangement and reactions, as a lightning storm accentuates charge and a planet accentuates gravity. As a property, I don't mean to say that each subatomic particle is fully aware of its own existance, but that it contains some infinitesimally basic building block of consciousness. This is too much like animism.

gab"needs to spend more time doing homework"by