It can bind to anything. Human consciousness can temporarily bind to a shovel, and to a gopher who can only perceive things at its level, under the ground, the shovel will appear conscious. Similarly, our body is the outer layer that's temporarily bound to our brain, which in turn is bound to activity within neurons, which in turn is driven by something else. As for the fundamental origin of consciousness, it's at different levels in different people. In some rare examples, the highest level is the electrochemical activity within neurons, so that's their origin of consciousness. Those with the higher level will perceive those below as somewhat mechanical, I guess, as the workings of their consciousness will look observable. On the other hand, consciousness from a higher origin will seem mysteriously unpredictable to those below. Then I think there is a possibility of an infinitely high origin: no matter at which level you inspect it, it will always appear to be just a shell for a consciousness residing one level higher. Some humans may be like that. Things are complicated by the fact that different levels have different laws and time flows: at the level of mechanical gears things can be modeled with simple mechanics, at the level of chemical reactions things become more complicated, then at the level of electrons the laws are completely different, and if electrons are driven by something else then we are lost completely. For example, a watch may be purely mechanical, or it can be driven by a quartz oscillator that also takes input from an accelerometer. I understand that this idea may seem uncomfortable, but the workings of the universe doesn't have to fit the narrow confines of the Turing machines that we know of.

Good point, thanks for the nudge!