Of course, the concept of consciousness is debatable. William James, et al. But how can you say that viruses are not life forms because they might lack consciousness? There must be some current reasoning behind that.
From my own perspective, I think it possible that even electrons and protons can carry consciousness. Granted, the consciousness would be undeveloped, but the potential must exist. The complex electric field that our nervous system generates has a basis in the characteristics of the elementary particles. Continuity. But, even trees, lacking a nervous system, do have some ability to respond to stimulae, and can be trained to anticipate.