Indeed, Junior. It seems that all forms of living beings possess some form of consciousness, be it simple sentience, awareness, all the way up to self-consciousness. Indeed, consciousness seems to be the hallmark of living beings. So perhaps the question then becomes: Did life "develop gradually?" If it developed, then it must have had a beginning -- Alamo-Girl and I have been referring to this as the inception of "life vs. non-life."
What do you think?
The principle of continuity is very useful. If we look for a break-point, we immediately find ourselves in a Looking-Glass world. As that phony remarked, consciousness resides in the cell, in the cell wall in particular. He put a break-point there. It's not a tenable position because we can't say this membrane is alive and that membrane is not. Continuity would allow for consciousness, or the building blocks, if we can imagine consciousness to be made up of sub-structures, to be present in electrons. What are electrons aware of; are they aware of themselves? Take a look in Alice's mirror--you are electrons; you claim to be self-aware.
My gut feeling is that, as one goes back further toward the beginnings of life, the boundary between life and non-life grows fuzzier and fuzzier. Looking at the spectrum between self-replicating molecules and the simplest cells, one cannot point to a particular spot along the line and say, "this is the first living thing."
Only if you engage in circular definitions, or if you define consciousness in a trivial way.