The cardboard and marbles aren't self-aware, they just encode a configuration that sees itself as self-aware when left alone to execute. Just like the atoms of

The cardboard and marbles aren't self-aware, they just encode a configuration that sees itself as self-aware when left alone to execute. Just like the atoms of your body. Self-awareness isn't a static property, since it's hard to call someone under anesthetic self-aware, but just another thing an agent in motion perceives. You ought to read Permutation City.