Self Awareness Naturally Selected For Complex Organisms

An organism may have two paths before it to get food. Path A may have
predators on route. Path B is safer. Using memory of past experiences
and ability to play out various scenarios upon taking either of the
paths and picking the safest path applies memory and logical thinking.
But we can think of entities that can behave logically and have memory
that are consciousness. A Robot, computers with artificial
intelligence. Organism could have thinking machinery similar to robots
physically realized with living cells.
  Consider an organic molecule that is surrounded by other molecules.
If the organic molecule had an affinity to attach other molecules
until it become unstable and breaks away. If the part that breaks away
is able to repeat the behavior of adding other molecules until it is
unstable, breaks away and then repeats the process. Say such molecules
goes changes in very many different ways. Some that absorb certain
kind of molecules have better survivability than others. Molecules
that absorbed others no may have had multiple survival
characteristics, and in consequence better survivabilty relative to
other kinds of rudimentary organisms. perhaps the first living cells
were just such grouping of molecules in which molecules specialized in
sub-functions of the overall function of the cluster of molecules.

With time, through natural selection, such clusters of molecules
(cells) may have chanced upon associating with others. Some of the
associations had better survivability and reproduceabilty than others.

   Extrapolating, we get multi-cellular organisms. Now in
multicellular, different cells do different things. For the organism
as a whole, there needs to be logical thinking to speculate on
outcomes for the variety of possible actions. Those that tended to
take best path will have to consider competing needs and make a
decision for the whol unit. Hunger drives the organism to get food.
But if there was a predator near the food, then it needs to avoid that
food. This is best done by a central processing of various perceptions
and pieces of memory and overruling less valuable tendencities and
giving higher weightage to more valuable tendencities. Situation ripe
for central nervous system. Perceptions produces drives. Considering
many such drives at the instance of perceptions, considering them for
survivabilty necessitates logical thinking.

  Tendencies for survival necessitates a sense of self. That is, a
group of molecules seeing the group as different from rest of the
universe. With that sense comes the possibility of taking decisions on
behalf of the self in a changing environment. The path to artificial
consciousness may be planting a desire to survive in a machine. Desire
is possible only with self awareness. The two must have evolved
together and not in isolation from each other.