What do we call academics who ignore current knowledge that contradicts their ideas? Cranks. A subset of cranks being most "philosophers".
At our current understanding of consciousness we have no way of observing its presence or absence except subjectively. So at this point there is no scientific way of either proving or disproving that a carrot have consciousness.
You may think it is "obvious" that a carrot does not have consciousness. Which is fine, but that doesn't make the opinion science. For what it is is worth I intuitively think consciousness requires a complex brain, but I recognize I cannot prove or disprove it given our current understanding.
Are you saying the Standard Model is not empirically true???
This is your fallacy right there.
Science is a process and method. If a professional scientist performs philosophy it does not automatically become science due to the persons job title. And vice versa.
If you think this physical fact is not true, then explain why. Though I think your time would be better spent familiarising yourself with McDonald's menu for your future career rather than pondering difficult questions about consciousness...
That human consciousness is a function of the boundary between the brain and the environment across which senses pass; the internal processes virtualising the external environment. The human consciousness then also has awareness of itself, sensed across the boundary, and re-virtualised within; akin to Hofstadter's loop.
At the same time, Grosz breaks down the concept of consciousness in the other direction, looking at this idea of virtualization within a sensing boundary in a single cell organism. The mechanism of such consciousness can be understood in this case as a mere transfer of information. From there its turtles all the way down.
Such a view is well within the standard model.
The stuff about the single cell organism's supposed consciousness is just a lame analogy.
This is what you can do if you are a "philosopher" - just sniff some glue and write stuff down.
Electrons don't need to think to be conscious because thinking != consciousness. Experiencing their state is all that needs to occur to satisfy consciousness.
The idea is that consciousness experienced is 1:1 with the state of the matter producing the consciousness.
Also, the randomness in quantum behavior could actually be how conscious entities think. Electrons may only have a couple states but they get to roll the dice, fairly, on those states. Just like we think we do, even though our decisions are random..not actually "willed."