You don't particularly give arguments for thinking that insects don't have consciousness though, your points can absolutely get reversed: 1) The step occured s

You don't particularly give arguments for thinking that insects don't have consciousness though, your points can absolutely get reversed: 1) The step occured somewhere between sub-atomic particles and humans, so why not somewhere between sub-atomic particles and insects? 2) Consciousness is gradual, in which case I wouldn't be surprised if an insects consciousness is closer to a human's consciousness than to a sub-atomic particle's consciousness. So we're back to the starting point of... nobody really has a clue what we're talking about :)