Basic model of the extrapolate down approach, wherein anthropocentric models of existence, e.g. life, consciousness, free will, etc., are assumed to exist at the atomic or subatomic level, because they are assumed to exist at the human level, and theories are developed to substantiate this view.

“The only way we can coherently explain the existence of choice at our macro level is to assume that it must go ‘all the way down’ to the lowest-level micro entities. Choice—the exercise of free will and self-agency—must exist to some degree at the micro level if it exists at the macro level. Otherwise, the emergence of choice from the utter absence of choice would require a miracle.”

“Ordinarily we believe that other human beings are conscious, and almost everyone believes that other mammals and birds are conscious too. But people differ over whether fish are conscious, or insects, worms, and jellyfish. They are still more doubtful about whether one-celled animals like amoebae and paramecia have conscious experiences, even though such creatures react conspicuously to stimuli of various kinds. Most people believe that plants aren’t conscious; and almost no one believes that rocks are conscious, or Kleenex, or automobiles, or mountain lakes, or cigarettes. And to take another biological example, most of us would say if we thought about it, that the individual cells of which our bodies are composed do not have conscious experiences.”