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I'm not sure this is unique to consciousness (whatever that is). What would it even mean to directly interact with the physical world? Even the most precise scientific experiments are a series of indirect measurements of something that perhaps in some sense is fundamentally unknowable.

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That's a fair point. I envision this as the difference between an electron interacting with the proton or an acid reacting with the base vs me touching my keyboard. Do you feel there's a difference there?

I don't know what consciousness is or how to talk about it. But at a basic level I don't believe there is a category of phenomena separate from the physical world or inaccessible to the scientific method; and if there were I don't know how you would say anything meaningful about them. I am however willing to believe that rocks are not conscious.

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