Oh, and also, I think that having consciousness is not an on or off switch, but a sliding scale. The more complex your brain is, the more "conscious" you are.

Oh, and also, I think that having consciousness is not an on or off switch, but a sliding scale. The more complex your brain is, the more "conscious" you are. There's no reason for a brain of a dog or a mouse to not be able to observe/experience itself. It's model is probably simpler, but I bet it exists. Like before you have learned how to code, your brain dedicated only a tiny amount of neurons to represent the concept of "programming", or "building a website". But as you gain experience, the model of this stuff becomes more complex. I imagine that brains that have less neurons can still recognize their own signals("be coonscious") , but their map of their brains would have a "smaller resolution". ---- As I grow older and learn things, I notice that I get better at "meta" thinking, that is having a map/model of my own thought processes. When I'm trying to figure something out, I'm also paying attention to the mental operations my brain goes through as it tries to figure something out. The perfect example of it is writing fiction. When you begin learning to write, and are just trying to type a certain amount of words per day(to practice), you are doing it without any "self awareness", your brain generates words/ideas, and that's all there is to it, you don't know how. But as you get better, and pay attention to what your brain does as you write, you develop a neural network that represents the process of writing, the operations your brain needs to go through to craft a story. Because in the case of writing fiction this model is complex, it is really easy to notice. Like I can feel the neural network in my brain that repressnts the programming concepts that I've learned, I can also feel the neural network that represents mental operations I need to go through to generate a story. Good writers have a more complex and "correct" map of mental processes they need, so they can competently craft stories any time they want. But you can also learn to write well without "meta" thinking. Then your brain just strengthens the correct mental pathways as you practice(without "meta" thinking), so you can be good at writing without understanding how. I think that this is a really cool example, where you can directly experience a brain building a map of itself and then using it.