[adrianratnapala]

We don't have to get caught up in definitions of consciousness.

What we see in the case of microbe cell division is goal-directed behaviour. The physical details of how it happens are very important to cell biologists, but the bigger point is that one way or another the thing will behave in ways that help it grow and divide.

In that light it seems perfectly fine to say that the cell wants to divide. Indeed it is the most correct explanation I can think of -- and then I can invoke evolution as an explanation of how it came to want this.