Mysterious Consciousness

[Forgive the sententious tone of the following post. I take myself too seriously sometimes.]

A sense of permanent unchanging entities is a deep subconscious bias that, I'm pretty sure, all humans have. There is an inherent idea that situations are stable, and when, through the natural force of impermanence, situations transform and dissolve, we often have a sense of regret and suffering. This occurs at all levels from trivial to profound. An alcoholic suffers from the idea that the alcoholic buzz is a state that can be perpetuated ad infinitum, and we suffer when a loved one dies because our concept of their perpetuity is shattered. So what is the root of this bias toward perceiving things as permanent and unchanging? According to one level, that's the whole origin of this world of samsara that we wander in. The mistaken perception of an unchanging "I" starts the whole thing in motion, and soon we are surrounded in a cloud of karmic illusion. Yet, on another level, there ought to be a more scientific explanation of why we have this strong sense of self. An appealing explanation a la Dawkins is that a sense of self is extremely useful when it comes to passing along genes. After all, we are the progeny of those who have successfully passed on their genes, implying those genes probably select for traits which best assist those genes in being passed along further. Thus, it's good to have a sense of self that one cherishes and defends, so that one's genes survive. So at one level, a deep and basic component of our behavior is simply a side effect of an iterative mathematical process.
I believe these two explanations are completely consistent myself, and I even think that the laws of physics themselves may be products of our karma. The universe appears a certain way to us as a function of our collective karma, and that includes the laws of physics. But why, if there is a more conventional explanation, should one believe the Buddhist explanation at all? To me the bare fact of our experienced consciousness is so mysterious that it cries out for something besides the conventional laws of physics. Also, the gene explanation, like any scientific explanation, only goes so far. The laws of deduction are inherently limited. A chain of implications is only a bridge between two unknowns, but doesn't tell you how to deduce the truth of the fundamental ingredients. Furthermore, the idea of elementary causation can only go so far. To say that one thing causes another is a huge simplification, since in any event a number of causes and conditions come in to play. It's more like the entire universe at any given moment is what causes the next moment, although even this is not right since quantum theory implies that physics is only deterministic at a probabilistic level. (And also, relativity says that there's no such thing as having one instant of time across the entire universe.) Thus scientific explanation is inherently limited, but still valid within its scope.