I agree partly with what you are saying, but think there is, or should be, in this case a distinction between intelligence and conciousness...
It seems what you are talking about here is our higher intelligence rather than consciousness. Most people would argue that there are various levels of consciousness, as with intelligence.
It is my experience that consciousness exists to the degree of awareness capable of the being having consciousness, implying all things have consciousness, although they may not be aware of it.
All depends on definitions and agreements.
There are levels of consciousness, but there is consciousness first in order to have levels at all. It's like there are different sizes of balls, but balls exist in order to have different sized balls. Or that that there are degrees of muscular strength, but muscles are required in the first place for degrees of strength to be attributable. It's just logic.
Right, but a ball is a ball only if we recognize it as such.. it exists as a concept even before its materialized, or the ball won’t exist at all.
I think consciousness is, and will be all ways. Becoming more localized through the mechanics of our living bodies,, such as the mechanism of empathy.
A ball doesn't exist before we create it, so we need to think of something first, then create it with our hands. Is that what you mean? Or are you saying nothing exists without us thinking about it as a concept, like a tree? A tree is there whether we call it a tree or don't have a concept for green things, or wood things, etc. It's still there.