Hi Eckhard! Thanks for responding :)

This was my first article on Medium, so I'm so glad someone responded to this. I'm in the process of writing a new series of articles about this while reading more scientific papers for my PhD.

You're right. I think that's the correct question. Consciousness is a broad topic that is used in many ways. For example, we can ask if non-human animals can feel pain (sentience). The current opinion is that even insects could be considered sentient.

We can dig deeper and ask if non-human animals, for example, are capable of mental-time-travel or logical reasoning to solve a novel problem. For example, an octopus using a shell as a shield to defend its territory from an intruder.

For me, the more interesting question is how animals experience their world. For example, our Umwelt is pretty visual. Cetaceans and bats, on the other hand, rely more on sounds and echolocation. If we put all the animals in a giant gym, no one will experience it the same, as evolution shaped their nervous systems differently. Some will experience odors, sounds, or colors that others can't.

Here I'm talking more about perception though. Hard to prove that a non-human animal is experiencing its perceptions. If you're interested, this is an excellent and fresh review of the topic (dimensions of animal consciousness): https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/S1364-6613(20)30192-3