Is Consciousness Present at All Levels of Matter?

[loseyourname]

Who considers object recognition and selection conscious behavior? Its well-known that humans are capable of performing complex tasks and processing complex information entirely without conscious thought (ever had highway hypnosis?). That's an interesting experiment that I hadn't heard of, but what it implies to me is that the human brain works very much like a parallel-processing computer: different parts can process different pieces of information independently, and without the need for user input (conscious thought).

Actually, it's very well known that the human brain is a parallel-processor. The really interesting implication of these experiments is that just about every function of the brain seemingly can be carried out without conscious input. The question I would ask is why you consider, in this case, the tasks carried out by the left-hemisphere to be conscious, but the tasks carried out by the right hemisphere to be non-conscious. Words can also be spat out unconsciously, including correct answers to questions. In addition, objects can be seen and recognized by touch consciously. So who are we to say simply that because the left-hemisphere is not conscious of the visual input, that the right hemisphere is not conscious? You may be able to say that action undertaken by the left hand was taken unconsciously, but there is no valid logical leap from that premise to the conclusion that the right hemisphere never consciously received any input. In fact, it should be clear from personal experience that we are conscious of input to both hemifields of vision. Given these considerations, what reason is there to believe that consciousness resides entirely in only one hemisphere?

Edit: Let me see if I can phrase this a little more explicitly: It is clear from these studies that neither hemisphere is conscious either of the input or activity of the other. How then can we call one hemisphere conscious and not the other? How do we know that they are not both conscious?