This reminds me of a Fredric Brown short story I can't remember the name of in which an entity travelling through the galaxies encounters a planet upon which consciousnesses are, surprisingly, encased in finite bits of matter. There is matter, and there is consciousness, but never had this entity seen the two in some combination.

I don't know if there's a real "who came first" in speculative fiction, but I often think Brown's ideas were truly innovative. For instance, in his 1954 (very) short story "Answer", we see the basis for Skynet, and I've been as yet unable to find an earlier instance of this idea. http://www.alteich.com/oldsite/answer.htm