>Normally, I would go straight into throwing some objections at the idea that a group of things could share an internal world, but I can save that for later.

But if my consciousness comes from my brain, then a group of things MUST able to share an internal world! My brain is not a single indivisible thing but rather made up of a large group of individual neurons. All intelligences are collective intelligences.

This could apply to other life too. An ant colony may very well be its own intelligent thing, made of individual ants in the same way a brain is made of neurons.