One of my gripes with Penrose, et al is that he has jumped into speculation about quantum computing in the brain without exhausting more mundane explanations. It seems premature to try to explain consciousness without working your way up from descriptive explanations of "lesser" brains.
I imagine the physics of the brain would be the same for "lesser" brains. With regard to consciousness, in the absence of interactive language (comprehension, decision making and response) - with the "lesser" brains to determine the existence of free will, I'm not sure how else one would proceed.