Animals Have Consciousness

About a month ago, a group of scientists got together in Cambridge and proclaimed --

“The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.”

-- Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness. 

i.e. animals, like humans, possess consciousness.

While a lot of us might find this declaration shocking, I only think it natural. In the Gita, as in many other religious scriptures, it is declared that all living things (animals and plants included) have a consciousness. The Gita goes a step further and says the actions of previous births determine your next life. So if you've been bad, you may be dropped to an animal level. Consequently, being born a human is one of the biggest blessings as it is only in this state than one can achieve moksha or Nirvana. 

While I am not too sure about de-humanizing anyone (animals or plants), I do think animals have a certain level of intelligence and ability to perceive things that are beyond us. How else can you explain bird migration during winter or dogs howling before a natural disaster? Obviously, nature is letting out subtle cues that we are closed to but animals are able to grasp. Plants, I think, share a similar ability; they simply go unnoticed because they are immobile. Ask a gardener who watches his plants everyday  and he will tell you his plants let out moods and convey emotions.

While humans are on top of the food chain, this does not at all mean we understand everything. Scattered in this universe are a lot of ideas and concepts that we have not grasped yet; some of them right here on Earth.