[muawiyah]

Odds are "consciousness" arises in some manner from a super computer array built along a strand or two of DNA ~ right from the beginning.

That "consciousness" might well be in charge of the "evolution" of its own container.

[TigersEye]

I don’t know how you calculate those odds but it is also possible that consciousness doesn’t require any physical “container” to exist. Perhaps it just takes advantage of them as you already suggested.