Actually, I believe 'sentience' is synonymous with 'awareness' - an "undifferentiated consciousness." So the order goes ssomething like: sensation -> sentience -> consciousness -> intelligence.
But I am a bit at a loss as to where this discussion is trying to go. Is it the 'when' (viz 'how') - ergo scientific postulation - or "Why does a cell cooperate in the survival of the function or organism?" (although contextually that sounds more like a 'how' question) - ergo metaphysical speculation?
In general, it seems to me as though you are seeking to enumerate "original miracles" as a challenge to 'science.' To that extent you and I have agreement, if I'm not presuming too much on your part, with (1)E=Mc2 (although you would sub-divide that into at least two pieces of space/time and inertia); (2) The possibility of 'life'; (3) Consciousness (which I would claim is actually (consciousness/will); (4) Conscience (although I think there may be a 'more original' miracle from which 'conscience' derives. I have at the moment left off 'information' because I still don't have a clear grasp of the connotation you intend which is in some sense 'miraculous.'
Let me try to describe what I think might be the 'miraculous' nature of information and see if you agree.
Beyond the miracles of the physical cosmos, life, consciousness and conscience, it is also miraculous that there exists a discoverable 'language' that describes and permits communication of and about (at least some) of those miracles.
For example, mathematics is the 'language' of the physical universe; perhaps DNA is the 'language' of life; and presumably we might someday extend our 'information' discoveries to include some yet undiscovered 'language' of consciousness, conscience, etc.
In that sense, what I mean by 'information' is a kind of 'meta-language' which subsumes mathematics, DNA and likely more 'language subsets.' However, from your posts, I think you are more focused on the micro-aspects of 'information' - what I call 'infons' - elementary particles of 'messages'. It is somewhat analogous to research in 'artificial' intelligence; some researchers seek answers from philosophy, some in the 'macro' aspects of intelligence with CAT scans of the brain, some seek 'contrasting' clues in the 'breakdowns' stemming from physical injuries to the brain, some in the operation of neurons and their axons. Some believe that intelligence necessarily derives from some critical level of complexity. And yet others think it might be achieved piecemeal - i.e. achive 'chess playing', add 'language processor', add this and that and eventually you get to 'intelligence'. I find it a bit curious that there is little effort to 'simply' start with trying to achieve 'artificial sentience' - anything which could be seen as a primitive form of awareness of 'self' or even that sensory inputs have any kind of 'meaning.' Ah well.
Despite our 'coming at' "information" from different directions, have I captured the question about information ?
What is Life?... Not what does life DO but what IS LIFE?..
We all suffer from the observer problem. LOL!
For instance, I tend to look at the leaves and count on betty boop to smack me across the head every now and then so I don't lose sight off the forest.
Spiritually speaking, the mega-language is Jesus Christ, the Word of God, Logos.
Looking at those leaves - the languages are several as you say: mathematical structures, DNA/tRNA, myriad symbolic languages representing images or concepts.
Concerning life, at this time, I'm leaning to light as a carrier of information in the cosmos - though there may also be an expanded time-like dimension (Wesson) or field (all points in space/time) involved.