Consciousness in cells

tl;dr:  Life is fractal. Cells increase their surface area by forming bodies, and those bodies form societies.

Whether something is conscious depends on how we define consciousness: being awake? able to make complex decisions? Having a model of self in one's head? Being unpredictable? I try t simply and clarify this on my AnswersAnswers page. Depending which definition we choose, most things are conscious to some extent. With that in mind, it is interesting to think about consciousness in individual cells.

Bruce Lipton points out some interesting features of cells. I am not using his name to support his other views, but he wrote the article and the article makes sense to me. But it is rather long so I will summarise the main points here:

• Everything we do is done by our cells. In groups, usually.
• Every cell has all the features of life: organs (organelles) that allow simple forms of respiration, excretion, senses, etc.
• The DNA is commonly thought of as the brain, but some cells can survive for months without DNA. The DNA is simply the brain's memory. A better candidate for the cell brain (the controlling part of the cell) is the cell membrane. 
• The cell membrane is not just a container, it regulates what happens in the cell, just as a brain regulates a body: its proteins decide what comes in and out of the cell. In other words, the membrane decides how the cell interacts with its environment. In the same way, human brains decides how we interact with our environment, what information and nutrients we take in, what information we give out and what forces we exert, and so on. Our brains are of course made of cells: everything we do is done by them.
• Cells are limited by their size, and so they form larger groups, such as humans, and we in turn form societies. It's a fractal thing.

Of course, I am talking about "me" as different from my cellular parts. I made AnswersAnswers so that questions like that, the precise meaning of things, can be clarified.

It is probably coincidence, but the cell membrane reminds me of Stephen Hawkins' work on branes - the idea that the universe can be defined in just two dimensions.

The idea that existence only occurs at boundaries ties in very nicely with fundamental ideas of what makes reality.

So many connections, yet everything fits together so simply.