Consciousness is nothing more but the final arbiter of attention. As such it must have a way to evaluate situations, including our own internal state and this i

Consciousness is nothing more but the final arbiter of attention. As such it must have a way to evaluate situations, including our own internal state and this is done by emotions. Emotions are our default approach interpret a given situation. I think the 'beast machines' analogy is a good one. We're reproduction machines. We're not thinking machines. We do not evaluate our environment using logical thinking and although some may learn to use this tool (logical thinking) to justify paying attention to something in particular, it's emotions that guide our eyes and our attention. Anything that has attention to guide has a consciousness. It might not use words or other symbols to reinforce attention but the basic mechanism, the cycle of emotion, evaluation and attention stays the same.