Maybe it's my old "moral relatavism" kicking in, but the point of view you espouse here seems to have at its core an extreme utilitarianism. As if saving the qu

Maybe it's my old "moral relatavism" kicking in, but the point of view you espouse here seems to have at its core an extreme utilitarianism. As if saving the quantity of lives trumps all other concerns of existence. That's fine and all, but I choose other, less rigid ways of looking at things like to study of consciousness. On a practical level, the study of consciousness seems to promise real world benefits. on a more mystical level, it's an extension of our desire to understand the fantastic experience of being alive. It is interesting to note how often the need for "consciousness raising" is connected to strategies for environmental preservation. On the topic of the OP, extending to argument that other human consciousnesses exist to animals seems entirely sensible. We share so much biology and physiology with the higher animals, as well as behavior, it seems strange to exclude the experience of "self" from animal behavior. As someone noted, the fact that animals dream strikes me as a compelling argument the the animal has a psychological construct of self. I live with a very smart dog, and am continually fascinated by sharing my life with another being, who is non-human. One of the things that I find interesting is noticing how my dog has its own mental construct of physical reality. She is highly attuned to things that interest her, that she has a mental construct for. So she will become quite focused on a fly, buzzing around the room. But she seems to have very little awareness of cars, paying them little to no attention. Unless the it is a stopped car with door open, then she tunes right in. It's informative to me in trying to understand my own lived experience of reality, and how heavily filtered it is enable experiencing the constant sensory input to my brain as more than an overwhelming stream of pure sensory data, rushing in at a far greater rate than my conscious brain could ever process.