[danschuller]

I think conscious isn't a binary yes/no kind of property. It's more a range, where you can put humans arbitrarily at 1.0 and then a mouse might be 0.05 or something like that. It certainly has self-awareness of somekind, even basic biological homeostasis requires self-awareness of a limited kind.

Other animals then present more consciousness, like chimps, dolphins, elephants etc and would place somewhere between the mouse and humans.