You are failing to explain why reality has such phenomena available and available only to consciousness.
What are you talking about?
I wouldn't consider Euglena to have consciousness, and yet they can respond to light by changing the direction their flagella beat. How they do that is not by thinking about it but when light hits the eyespot a secondary messenger is released that interacts with the flagella to induce it to reverse rotation. Nothing "conscious."
Plants can respond to light by inducing certain cells to swell, causing the plant to bend towards the light. It is done by chemically induced signals, not consciousness.
Serratia marcescens produce colored pigments when exposed to light that are also induced by chemical signals. These pigments serve no apparent purpose. Again, no consciousness.
Message 63 I can't see the Polar bear having to compete against anything.
They compete against seals. The seals recognize bears and avoid them (for obvious reasons). In order for a polar bear to get a decent meal it needs to sneak up on it prey. White coat coloration helps them do so. A brown bear would not get enough food to survive in the Arctic.
Message 64 It is easy to retrospectively strip a process of any intelligence.
Again, what are you talking about??
HBD
Whoever calls me ignorant shares my own opinion. Sorrowfully and tacitly I recognize my ignorance, when I consider how much I lack of what my mind in its craving for knowledge is sighing for. But until the end of the present exile has come and terminated this our imperfection by which "we know in part," I console myself with the consideration that this belongs to our common nature. - Francesco Petrarca
"Nothing is easier than to persuade people who want to be persuaded and already believe." - another Petrarca gem.
™ Version 4.2