The solution to what consciousness and life are, is to understand them as the same thing. All life is aware. Before life, there was no knowing. The universe is what life knows about, from bacteria to humans.

Part I. "Matter," traces the philosophical and scientific progression that mirrors the evolving separation of form from matter.
Part II. "Form." This progression culminates as information when form frees itself from matter.
Part III. "Awareness in Form." The forms of awareness a such.
Part IV. "Awareness in Matter." The forms of living matter.
Part V. "Living Awareness." The philosophical basis of living awareness.