Antony Valentini banned discussion of this topic at Michael Towler's Tuscany Conference Aug 28-Sept 4 on David Bohm's theory. David Bohm would have had to disinvited since he was very interested in this question raised by Erwin Schrodinger in a little book "What is Life?"

My argument is that there is no ordinary consciousness without signal nonlocality.
Dead matter has signal locality with nonlocal entanglement.
The elan vital is signal non-locality violating quantum theory in a more general post-quantum theory.

Matter is piloted by the mental qubit field in Bohm's theory.

Ordinary quantum theory with signal locality, but nonlocal entanglement, has action of the qubits on the matter but no compensating back-reaction of the matter on the qubits. It is the back-reaction of certain electrons in our microtubules on their qubit that evokes qualia - our conscious experiences, memories, will etc.

This back-reaction requires non-equilibrium pumping e.g metabolism in living matter - thermal equilibrium is death.