I think of it more as an efficiency argument. Does being self aware help with survival? For the sea slug, probably not, for other (higher level) organisms maybe

I think of it more as an efficiency argument. Does being self aware help with survival? For the sea slug, probably not, for other (higher level) organisms maybe. Is a pareto frontier of awareness? Trading off the increased cognitive ability it likely supplies with the increased energy consumption it requires. Whats interesting about some of these findings is, in addition to of course the pure science of it, that self-awareness may offer more benefits than previously thought. This could have implications beyond biological understanding, perhaps in building AI agents for example.