The Consciousness of Subatomic Particles

If we say that there's only material and we start sort of building things up, then we have to just pause it that this strange thing called consciousness just appears. It seems like assuming materialism, we just have all these sort of mysteries about how consciousness would emerge. Is it just those considerations that make you say, well, I guess we'll just say that the subatomic particles are conscious? Or is there some other independent reason to think that mass or charge are best thought of as consciousness?