> What's the lower bound of complexity at which consciousness kicks in? What about supraorganisms such as insect hives? Human cities? An ecosystem as a whole?

> What's the lower bound of complexity at which consciousness kicks in? What about supraorganisms such as insect hives? Human cities? An ecosystem as a whole? There's also the question of the nodes and edges of the graph; does the complexity (or processing capability) of these have any effect on the complexity bounds? That is - compare a neuron as the node (and the dendrites as the "edges") in the larger graph of the neural network that is the human brain. Each node and edge are relatively simple compared to the entire brain. Now - what happens when that brain becomes the node (via a human) and the edges of the graph of interaction in society becomes the internet (social networking, email, etc)? Both are much more complex than the former - so do we need fewer nodes/edges to "kickstart consciousness"? The problem of course is how can we (as individual nodes) perceive this consciousness? How could we ever query it? And - if we could query it - and it perceived us querying it - what would it do? If for instance - you perceived one or more of your neurons suddenly say "Hey - I'm a neuron - can you talk to me? I want to know what you are thinking? Helloooo?" - what would you do? Well - more than a few of us would probably head to the doctor in an attempt to either shut that neuron up or remove it or kill it or...you get the idea. So - if we were to do the same thing...?