A mountain doesn't mean something it is not. A mountain doesn't even mean a mountain. It simply is a mountain. Water flowing over a cliff doesn't mean anything other than water flowing over a cliff. It doesn't even mean water flowing over a cliff. It simply is water flowing over a cliff.
In information systems, things mean other things; things that they are not. In spoken language, sounds mean things they are not. One particular sound means mountain. It is not, itself, a mountain. It is just a sound. But we have all agreed that that sound means mountain. Other sounds mean water flowing over a cliff. They are not, themselves, water flowing over a cliff. They are just sounds. But we have all agreed that those sounds mean water flowing over a cliff.
In written language, we have all agreed that squiggles of certain shapes on paper (or a computer screen) mean other things. Usually, they mean sounds; sounds which, themselves, mean something. The squiggles mountain mean the sounds most of us are now hearing in our heads, which, in turn, mean the big hunk of earth rising above the earth surrounding it.
However, for all the squiggles in a book, there is no meaning, no information, without us interpreting it. Something that is not those squiggles is needed to recognize that they are symbols previously agreed upon to represent something else, and interpret them. Indeed, something that is not those squiggles is needed to establish in the first place that those squiggles mean the things they mean, so that the squiggles can then be interpreted by any who know how to do so. Otherwise, they are just squiggles, and may as well be the result of spilled ink.
If the particles in a group, regardless of why it is considered a group, are in physical-only relationships, the group is not conscious - does not subjectively experience - as a group. But information is not physical. It is not a micro physical property, like mass and charge. It is not a macro property, like liquidity. It is not a macro characteristic, like height. It is not a physical process, like metabolism or flight, which we can see depend on the physical properties like mass and charge. It is not a characteristic of a physical process, like speed. We can't detect it with our senses or technologies. We can't measure its length. We can't weigh it. We can't examine it in any way.
All the particles of an information processing system are experiencing. And the processing of information unifies a system in a way that physical proximity does not. Perhaps consciousness experiences something like itself - something not physically reducible. Perhaps "like knows like." Perhaps there is resonance. Maybe an analogy would be a generator that isn't hooked up to anything. There's something in it that is not being used. Someone who doesn't know what a generator is would have no idea that there's something in it that can do amazing things.
Of course, no analogy is good, because every example we might come up with is reducible to the physical properties and laws of physics that we know and can study, while consciousness is not. There is no true common ground; no equivalencies to compare. Other than the fact that physical and mental are both parts of our reality. But they are too different to have a very useful analogy.
Where does information, and consciousness of groups of particles as a unit, begin?
DNA
DNA is an information system. It has meaning. It is about something that it is not. DNA is two complimentary strands of nucleotides running along sugar phosphate backbones, and joined by hydrogen bonds. DNA means chains of amino acids and proteins, which, once constructed, build living organisms.
A few things make DNA more extraordinary than any other information system.
1) DNA is the first information processing system we know of. Possibly the first in the universe.
2) DNA is not an information processing system created by humans. It is naturally-occurring.
3) DNA is what I call active information. In its natural form, the system that synthesizes protein - DNA, RNA polymerase, helicase, mRNA, tRNA, aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase, ribosomes, etc. - will synthesize protein. No part of the process is optional. The physical properties of the universe, the laws of physics, require certain things to happen under certain circumstances. Where DNA is concerned, they require that the information in DNA come into being in physical form.
This is opposed to static information. A book is an example of static information. A book is filled with information, but does nothing. A book about architecture does not construct buildings. It doesn't even draw blueprints. Further, I can read the book, and learn about architecture, yet I might never construct a building, or even draw blueprints. I need not act on information. The information can just sit in the book, and in my head, and nothing ever has to come of it.
Since DNA is the first information processing system that ever existed, it is the first time groups of particles were conscious as a unit. But it is important to remember that the conscious unit can only experience its own nature. Human abilities/characteristics like thinking, awareness, self-awareness, and sentience are not consciousness, or aspects of consciousness. They are only things humans experience. They are part of human nature. DNA does not experience those things.
But DNA was also the beginning of life. Evolution could then do its work. Many more information processing systems were added to life. Some processes involved information processing. And DNA was always there, at the center. The conscious units experienced more and more as the ages crawled by. Until, eventually, we have the mind.