How do chemicals know how to react with each other if they aren't aware of each other?
Electromagnetic frequencies. Harmonic frequencies attract while disharmonic frequencies repel. This is how chemicals are bound together at the molecular level. Same with molecules at the atomic level.
And the macro level.
Macro level is classical physics level.
Micro level is quantum physics level.
Awareness comes from the interference between particles, at whatever level.
The issue of consciousness is vague until it's determined/decided what the basic definition of consciousness is. Does it involve intent? Purpose? Free will? Knowledge? Or are these later arising products of it? Are there levels of consciousness? Does it amass into greater constituencies, like that of groups of people who together form a greater ability of mind than the single individuals on their own? How does the subconscious play into it? Is it a separate thing or is it a deeper level of it? Why do people who are in a sleep or trance state able to elicit phenomena (i.e. telepathy, clairvoyance) that they can't while in a fully waking state? Is this evidence of deeper consciousness?
Says who? If information hasn't been transferred then there's no energy exchange. There is a proto-awareness. Your thoughts are wrong.
How did something with no awareness give rise to something with awareness, do you realize how dumb that sounds? No if we are made of chemicals, and we have awareness, then chemicals have awareness as well.
Look at the similarities, when you form chemical bonds, energy is released, when you form bonds with humans, energy is released. When you break chemical bonds, energy is absorbed, when you break human bonds, you feel like shit.
There's no energy released or absorbed when humans establish relationships with each other, what happens is it triggers our brains to release various neurochemicals that are associated with emotions we perceive positively or negatively.
Also, there are no ways breaking bonds with people can feel fucking amazing, having an enemy leave your life feels like freedom, having an abusive or manipulative relationship end is a wonderful experience.
These are human bonds breaking, these are relationships ending that can be as close as friendships or romantic relationships, in fact, they could even be friendships and romantic relationships.
So even in the poetic sense, your arguments second half falls flat
As for the first part, that it takes awareness to create awareness, you seem to have have misconception of what awareness is.
There is no free will, you and everything you are or do, is the result of biological determinism, purely physical.
Your genes are the blueprint of your design, your design includes the way you are affected by any environment you find yourself in.
Your genes determine what you have the potential to be or do, your experiences determine where in this range of potential your being and actions actually end up.
Nature and nurture are not in conflict, they simply fulfill different roles, everything is a mix of both, one which sets the limits on what could be, and the which chooses where within those limits the actuality will occur.
You get no freedom of choice in your choices, your biology and environment are what makes you "you".
Therefore the complex thing that is you came from the many changes evolution made to simpler beings that came before, and those came from even simpler beings, down to the first that were unaware, but alive, and awareness is merely the complex result of simpler unaware components coming together in such a way as to produce this result, and they came to all manner of arrangements, but this one was tge most survivable and reproducible, and before these unaware lifeforms existed, they were a collection of different unliving materials that were binding together under very specific circumstances that occurred in the first years of our planets existence, and they made all sorts of arrangements, randomly, but these, the ones that would ultimately lead to something meeting the definition of life, would be the most survivable and reproducible, and the easiest to create.
All complexity comes from the accumulation of simplistic components, from basic chemicals we get life, from simple life we get aware life, from aware life, we get intelligent life, and from that we get us.
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