It is a common arrogance, even among "scientists", to assume that no other animal has self awareness or even emotions.
[1] http://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/news/20120820/anesthesia...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_consciousness#Cambridge...
The declaration: http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConscious...
> (Incidentally, Gallup's mirror test — removing a paint splotch from your face while looking at a mirror — is not an adequate test of self awareness, even though it is touted as such. We have seen patients who vehemently claim that their reflection in the mirror is "someone else" yet they pass the Gallup test!)
No other animal other than monkey? I don't think monkeys have self awareness either.
It's because animals don't communicate anything about themself, their signals are mostly based on pattern matching and direct response to events. They never communicate anything showing any evidence of an internal state.
They only communicate in response to external events, and maybe sensations from their bodies.
Even the chimps that did sign language never communicated anything showing any kind of internal state. (For example they never asked questions - events and things simply were.)
Emotions though, I agree animals have emotions. For example that sign-language chimp expressed sadness.
For animals to have self awareness they would have to show they are "thinking about something" - and I don't mean thinking about a solution to a direct goal for a problem in front of them.
Like in literally every non-biological context, everyone understands that similar systems in similar environments behave similarly. In my layman's understanding of biology, the only difference between human brains and other mammalian brains is neuronal density; all the structure is the same as far as I've read. If the structure is the same, and the behavior and neuronal activity matches what we'd expect from self aware organisms, why reach for a ghost?
If you have to keep believing humans are somehow special, then associate that specialness with being the only creature with highly dextrous appendages that evolved with access to trees and metal that also farms.
Oh really? So I never spent time simply pondering why this universe exists? Or why I like the color blue more than green?
> In my layman's understanding of biology, the only difference between human brains and other mammalian brains is neuronal density; all the structure is the same as far as I've read.
And yet humans are different. That's the puzzle. You can't say "I've solved the puzzle - there is no puzzle!" because there are obvious differences that you can't simply ignore by saying "I don't understand".
It doesn't work that way.
> If you have to keep believing humans are somehow special, then associate that specialness with being the only creature with highly dextrous appendages that evolved with access to trees and metal that also farms.
No thanks. I choose reality instead. Where humans are in fact special, they have self awareness and language, and the ability to argue on the internet.
You can go on imagining yourself as a body without a mind if you like, I choose different.
Go read Blindsight by Peter Watts, and ponder why we have a mind - the book will show you it doesn't have to be that way, yet it is.
Those are sensations coming from your body. The mind is a physical phenomenon, like breathing is a physical phenomenon.
edit: What is measurably special about humans is our unprecedented ability to change our environment, which seems explainable soley with the combination of high dexterity, farming, and access to highly manipulable elements. Each of those characteristics aren't unique to humans, but as far as I'm aware the combination of all three is. The cumulative changes of environment to the point where the immediate survival of the organism is guaranteed means the organism uses its facilities for things that aren't directly related to survival. Recorded history started after agriculture. Cave paintings took a ridiculous leap in complexity and detail after agriculture.
edit2: What I'm asserting is that high level behavior only happens in a high level, non-immediate survival based environment. The onset of human society was not deliberate and did not happen all at once.
Your cat prances up to you, swipes your face, and then runs away. Why does your cat do this?
Neural networks like this are trained with pavlovian methods, and are not self aware or conscious. So such behavior is not at all evidence of any kind of self awareness or consciousness.