More years ago than I care to remember, because I worked in the simulation field, I realized that what self-awareness was all about in nature. Awareness is necessary to connect responses to stimulus. If you are not aware of the stimulus (say a predatory shadow), it will be easier to be eaten and the more aware will survive. As the complexity of awareness builds, it is natural for self-awareness to evolve. Neurons are used to hold simulations of the environment for predicting and calculating threats or opportunities to mate or find food. You need a place holder for self in these simulations. Animals like humans visualize activities before they do them, as a predictive calculation to increase probability of success. The place holder is also useful as a focus for strong instincts to survive, and propagate.

All intelligence and other qualities seem to be present on a continuum. Even bacteria and virus have some level of awareness in the sense that they respond to stimuli. I have no problem in realizing that from these simple beginnings complex behaviors and thought patterns emerge as you increase the complexity of the brain immensely.

Another thought experiment is to project what is the next stage of evolution. It is relatively straightforward to realize we are still very primitive, and to see evolutionary process in play that will extend consciousness to much higher levels of the continuum. All of humanity is currently engaged in self-organizing behavior that by analogy has been done at lower levels already. By this I mean look at human beings, who are made up of scads of other organisms working symbiotically together. Now simply move up the scale and think of human beings as cells of a giant organism.

The organism of which we are a part is currently undergoing some rather critical evolutionary steps. I believe the development of massive computing, knowledge bases and the internet (highly interconnected information exchange among the cells) is analogous to when the nervous system, spinal cord, and brain were evolved in multicellular animals. At the same time, humans are specializing more and more (think how specialized cells in the human body forms various organs).

In all these musing, I see no need to evoke any kind of religion or soul. The ultimate mystery is why there is something rather than nothing. After that, we seem to live in a self consistent universe. Maybe the superconsciousness to which we are evolving will find deeper understanding of existence and will reveal as much as possible to its little cells (us).