What you explain is intelligence, which is the subject of the "easy question". Consciousness in this context is the existence of phenomenal, or first person experiences.

The hard question doesn't argue that consciousness is not a product of evolution. It probably is. It's just a question because we don't have a good way of explaining how/why it occurs.

> What we call “consciousness” is merely a product of evolution, and also a tool shaped by evolution.

that's the easy problem

would you care to link together 'complex IO systems inevitably degenerate to seperating self from environment as part of optimizing calculations' and your three questions? it isnt immediately clear why the concept of self answers the idea of god.