A Relativistic Theory of Consciousness

"Phenomenal consciousness is only seemingly private because in order to measure it one needs to be in the appropriate cognitive frame of reference. It is not a simple transformation to change from a third-person cognitive frame of reference to the first-person frame, but in principle it can be done, and hence phenomenal consciousness isn’t private anymore."

[facepalm]

I do think that consciousness is not recognizable by us, when it might exist, due to the spatial and temporal interval in which we reside.

For example, a tree, or a galaxy, can be conscious, but we'd never notice with the time it takes for the tree to react to seasons or millenial-long climate changes, or the space that the galaxy changes over -- and the speed of light limiting its reactions.