Painting of mostly white flowers with small areas of blue, green and red. The flowers are stand-ins for the mystery of consciousness in the universe. All living things, microbial, vegetal, animal, or human have consciousness; for example, we know that a complex molecule such as a protein enzyme is able to sense whether the condition around it is too cold, too hot, or chemically toxic, and can move itself to safety. Today physicists, with few exceptions, assume that consciousness arises out of complex systems, such as our brains. But the American philosopher Thomas Nigel distinguishes consciousness from reflective capacities, which he agrees only exist in complex life forms. Consciousness, he believes, is fundamental to the universe and “it would be wrong to take modern science to be the only paradigm of objectivity. The kind of understanding that science represents does not apply to everything people would like to understand.”