Consider the weather. Weather exists, I think everyone can accept this. But what is weather? Is it simply an aggregate emergent property of many interacting

Consider the weather. Weather exists, I think everyone can accept this. But what is weather? Is it simply an aggregate emergent property of many interacting atmospheric and geological systems? Or is it something more? How can emergent properties of even a complex system create self-organizing and self-perpetuating semi-stable phenomenon like tornadoes? What controls the weather? Consider consciousness. Everyone can accept that it exists. But what is consciousness? Is it really just an emergent property of brain-body activity? Or is it something more? How can an emergent property of a complex system create semi-stable behaviors and self-awareness? What controls consciousness? IMO, consciousness is just an emergent property of brain-body activity (mostly brain). More recent studies of animal behavior have shown that consciousness is not a binary -- you have it or you don't -- thing. It is a gradient. Different animals possess different levels of cognitive ability, consciousness, self-awareness, social-awareness, etc. In short, there is (again IMO) nothing special about human consciousness: I submit that any sufficiently complex trainable associative-memory neural network (like a biological brain) will possess some level of consciousness as an emergent property. Just like any sufficiently large atmospheric + geological environment will possess weather. Thus, there is no problem to understand (or not understand). As an aside, are humans even "fully self-aware"? How would we know if we're not? What does that even really mean?