Comment by ffwd
21 hours ago
Well in that case I'm not sure where you're going. I agree that hamsters probably have a similar consciousness to ours, which is kind of the point I was trying to make.
I think that consciousness comes before self-awareness, even though self-awareness is kind of a vague term. Self-awareness can either be an abstract knowledge that you are an organism and a discrete entity in the world (world knowledge/self knowledge), or it can be more basic and be a form of conscious experience, but as my point was, I think conscious experience is broader and does not necessarily need to be about self-awareness.
I think we agree on all of those points. I'd posit, however, that whatever "it" is, and however you define it, humans are further up the scale than other animals. That's partly why I mentioned language use; it could be the step function that allows further development. Like, sophisticated-enough communication with other conscious entities is the factor that unleashes recursive improvement. This is all highly speculative.