This seems a very concise and accurate assessment of the challenge. I am not sure from this if you accept the physicalist premise that is the foundation of the book. It's hard to see how the emergent patterns we consider lovely in the flight of the starlings means that particles or birds in relation to each other can produce consciousness. How many starlings will it take before the flock becomes something that it is like to be? Also curious what your thoughts are on the Penrose-Hamerof idea of quantum effects in microtubules as well as Henry Stapp's idea of the Zeno effect and the conscious mind affect matter.