What does it mean to be a self conscious animal?

[Fairy]

Are humans, just really animals with more complicated brains, or are we something more extraordinary than an animal?

Discuss.

[Fairy]

What does it mean to be fully conscious you are going to die.

What does it mean to be fully conscious of the possibility that you could be tortured to death either by an animal or a human being ?

[Impenitent]

I've never met a depressed lemming

-Imp

[Fairy]

I've never met a depressed lemming

-Imp

Who knows but them why they jump to their deaths.

What other animals wish to commit suicide, maybe the emperor penguins ?

This is no joke. Due to mental disorders, some penguins commit suicide. To end their lives, such individuals move away from the herd for many kilometers, to a place where they have no access to food. In this way they condemn themselves to death by starvation.

[Fairy]

It’s obvious that most life forms can be conscious of their harsh and desperate realities that are their natural environments, that they are forced to live and endure.

It’s not like they have any choice but to be born on this planet.

It’s brutal for some. Even the filthy rich and entitled humans can have an innate sense of depression and anxiety knowing they are conscious of the brutality indifference of natures ways. They might be billionaires but at the same time experience no enjoyment or excitement from their wealth. Some even commit suicide for whatever reason known to them.

Things are never what they seem or appear to be.

[tastycinnamon]

Regarding animals like lemmings or penguins, while some behaviors may look like suicide, they are often misunderstood or driven by instinct rather than a conscious desire to end life. Human suicides are typically linked to complex emotional and psychological states. In contrast, animal behaviors are usually survival-based, even when they result in death.

[bahman]

This is an answer to the title: Consciousness is the ability to experience. So self-consciousness is the ability to experience the self.

Are humans, just really animals with more complicated brains, or are we something more extraordinary than an animal?

Discuss.

We have rational thinking ability. Apart from that, most animals are better than us in other domains.

[puto]

Fairy wrote: "Are humans, just really animals with more complicated brains, or are we something more extraordinary than an animal? The Cynics were a school of Socrates gone mad, so please read about them, “The ability to speak does not make you smart.” The Cynics also loved to rant. One of my favorite quotes from the Cynics. Knowing, “Sitting around and quoting dead philosophers is not philosophy but about believing what you believe in what,” Ken Taylor Sandford professor and American philosopher CE 1954-2019. I wrote a paper about the Cynics and they followed what they believed was correct and right in life, so you may want to brush up on your skepticism.

[Walker]

I've never met a depressed lemming

-Imp

Who knows but them why they jump to their deaths.

They jump to their deaths to fulfill a need, but being animals, are probably not acquainted or concerned with Why, thus have no need to rationalize.

Many of the human needs orbit around support of self-concept, whatever that may be, even it be self-destruction either quick or slow. However, without a self-concept to destroy, the needs of leaping lemmings must have a source other than reinforcement of a self-concept that requires self-destruction. Big difference separating the species.

An example of human needs: some folks need to act wild and whacky, to be outrageous, in order to make their actions consistent with their self-concept.

What does this mean? It means that because everyone has a self-concept, the variable is attachment to the self-concept in determining whether or not one is exercising as objective a scientific perspective, as is humanly possible, in the perception of reality ... or as Kamalala would say, in the perception of "holistic" reality.

[promethean75]

The big problem with the theory that humans might possess some kind of soul due to the incredibly complex nature of their brains, abilities, and experiences, is that it would be an important and curious point of interest if only the earth wasn't also packed with so many other animals possessing very very similar brains and bodies.

Now, if this earth only had, say, humans, dogs, and a few fish, you'd have a lot of explaining to do to explain the stunning differences in man, dog, and fish physiology. Things would be strange. It would be harder to believe evolution is true here, and you'd want to think humans have some kind of extraterrestrial or divine origin. You'd have to. It's just too weird that there's only these three species on a planet with plants all over it. Man, dog, and fish. Nothing else. Nothing that looks kinda like a man and nothing like a fish or vise versa. No transitional-looking species linking the man to the dog or either to the fish.

It would be very easy here to become suspicious of your origins. But in our world, bursting at the seams with all manner of species, many of which look and act very much alike almost as if they came from a common ancestor, it's very difficult to not accept evolutionary theory of the origins of life on earth.

Man just isn't unique enough compared to his genetically similar cousins, the apes. Man's puzzle solving abilities just aren't unique enough when a dolphin can solve the same puzzle. We need a bigger species and intelligence gap between us and the other animals (without factoring in the opposable thumbs we have) to say there's something special about our swagger.

[Age]

Are humans, just really animals with more complicated brains, or are we something more extraordinary than an animal?

Discuss.

you 'human beings' are made up of two things; visible bodies, and, invisible thoughts and emotions.

The human body is just like every other animal body, in that within there is a brain.

The difference between the animal 'human' from every other animal is that the human animal has the ability to learn, understand, and reason absolutely any, and every, thing.

No other animal has this ability.

As for being 'self-conscious', this just means being 'conscious' of 'self'. The word 'conscious' just more or less means, or refers to, 'being aware'. So, to be aware of 'self' is to 'know' who and what the 'self', a human being, is, exactly.

And, when that is known, fully, then that human beings can then move along, or evolve, up to the next level, and stage, where the 'True Self' can become known, and this is when the question, 'Who am 'I'?' is answered properly, and Correctly, and also Once and for all.

[Fairy]

you 'human beings' are made up of two things; visible bodies, and, invisible thoughts and emotions.

That's correct.

I'd say the invisible visible. The unknown known.

The human body is just like every other animal body, in that within there is a brain.

The difference between the animal 'human' from every other animal is that the human animal has the ability to learn, understand, and reason absolutely any, and every, thing.

No other animal has this ability.

Ok.

As for being 'self-conscious', this just means being 'conscious' of 'self'. The word 'conscious' just more or less means, or refers to, 'being aware'. So, to be aware of 'self' is to 'know' who and what the 'self', a human being, is, exactly.

To know you are aware, requires two things: subject and object. The subject being the thinker, (invisible) and the object being the 'thought' ( also invisible)

And, when that is known, fully, then that human beings can then move along, or evolve, up to the next level, and stage, where the 'True Self' can become known, and this is when the question, 'Who am 'I'?' is answered properly, and Correctly, and also Once and for all.

( Who am I ? ) cannot be answered; since there is no one, or thing, asking the question.

[Fairy]

Man just isn't unique enough compared to his genetically similar cousins, the apes. Man's puzzle solving abilities just aren't unique enough when a dolphin can solve the same puzzle. We need a bigger species and intelligence gap between us and the other animals (without factoring in the opposable thumbs we have) to say there's something special about our swagger.

Humans aren't that special. They are probably the most hostile and self-destructive living organism that has ever disgraced this planet.

[Fairy]

Fairy wrote: "Are humans, just really animals with more complicated brains, or are we something more extraordinary than an animal? The Cynics were a school of Socrates gone mad, so please read about them, “The ability to speak does not make you smart.” The Cynics also loved to rant. One of my favorite quotes from the Cynics. Knowing, “Sitting around and quoting dead philosophers is not philosophy but about believing what you believe in what,” Ken Taylor Sandford professor and American philosopher CE 1954-2019. I wrote a paper about the Cynics and they followed what they believed was correct and right in life, so you may want to brush up on your skepticism.

So it seems being conscious you are aware, is to become conscious of being a cynic, and of being a believer, and of being a skeptic.
The realisation that you are conscious, is to become aware, to know you are a madman, a philosopher, a smartie pants, or a dumbo the elephant man.

Yuck!!

[Fairy]

This is an answer to the title: Consciousness is the ability to experience. So self-consciousness is the ability to experience the self.

The 'self' is the experience, no self is aware of, it's not a 'someone' who is having the experience of a 'self'.
There's only ''experiencing'' - and not (I am experiencing)

We have rational thinking ability.

The fact that no one or thing ever manifested a rational thought is irrational, and is by far, closer to the actual truth than any rational thinker could ever think otherwise.