You need something that can decide that gnawing off your own paw to escape the trap (yes I'm intentionally using an animal) is a good thing. Causing yourself extreme pain and mutilation as a good thing is way above basic stimuli.
I'm doubting that this is the case. And you "intended" to attribute low-grade consciousness to other mammals?

The amount of information given to it is the same a giving two A4 of company information to the CEO of say GE and he'll have to decide the future of the company from it.
The CEO analogy is a bad one, since the CEO is aware of where the information is coming from. No CEO assumes that the reports he receives are self-generated, unless he's insane.

I'm saying it's made to be the decision maker
In this theory, the point is that consciousness is merely a byproduct of systems that track the brain the way the brain tracks environments, and so doesn't actually effect anything of itself.

The point is that consciousness is literally much less than what you assume.