Okay I'll take the bait. For conciousness to arise, you need a certain threshold of varity, meaning a system has to have enough interaction between other systems or its parts for that matter, depends on where you draw the line.
Subatomic particles alone, for example, are just powerful enough that they interact with other particles with a certain set of rules, thus cannot have meaningful insights into how it itself or other things work.
Of course, nothing exists in a vacuum, a literal galaxy brain comprised of enough particles interacting with each other can,
since enough interactions allow it to be more than the sum of its parts.
Just saying some lazy ass statement about our own limited knowledge, i.e. "we cannot know what's beyond the quantum, so we cannot know if there's a tiny universe thinking for itself", comes across as very Jaden Smith like and kills the discussion.
It's the literal "no u" that made Popper write a rant about falsification.
We don't observe conscious behavior in non-living things or things with no brains, and modifying the brain modifies the conscious experience, so chances are that brains produce consciousness, and atoms and such clearly don't have brains, as brains are made of atoms. I'm playing devil's advocate, of course, I believe in panpsychism.
But I am very much in favour of that view. When we are talking low atoms, it is a consciouness on their level, so lightyears away from the consciousness your pet has for example but there still is something. I could go on but that is not what you have asked.
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