>>5114217
Literally everything with a noticeably centralized brain is “self aware” no matter how conditioned they are to reflections. As in, it must know it exists to handle basic concepts like self grooming, property, territory, and more advanced navigation than bumping into things. At one point people became fond of this idea that animals are hilariously large compilations of if-then-else statements but its actually simpler, evolutionarily and biologically, for it to just know it exists and figure out how to serve its own needs.

The number of small little retards like fish and ants passing the mirror test is a huge hint that everything bigger that failed it was actually self aware and either uninterested in touching/removing the spot or wasnt used to mirrors and had a stronger fear instinct overriding consideration.

The real question is if they think about thinking or just know they exist

I wonder how many people are olfactory self-aware

>>5114242
Having been to a TCG store before: very few.

>>5114221
>it must know it exists to handle basic concepts like self grooming, property, territory
Couldn't those just be instinct and basically automated without the animal understanding why it's doing what?
>more advanced navigation than bumping into things
I'm not sure. I don't think you need self awareness to see a wall and avoid it. Computer programs can do that.

>>5114267
>it could be a giant conflagration of case statement logic so surely it is
it makes you feel more comfortable if it is but its easier to just make part of a brain bigger until rudimentary consciousness emerges than it is to hone mechanistic behavioral pathways, considering how evolution actually works. then the brain can hone pathways on its own instead of waiting for the genetic dice roll.

>>5114267
Understanding (or thinking you understand) your own behaviors is thinking about thought and even humans tend to be wrong about it
Simple self awareness is knowing you exist and are not someone else
Being self aware means knowing you are walking and where in space and time you are, but not necessarily why

>>5114269
>it makes you feel more comfortable if it is
I don't really care and I agree that a lot of animals are smarter than we give them credit for. I just don't think that self awareness is a hard requirement for shit like grooming and territory like you said. Those are relatively simple actions and ideas that could be automated through instinct. Not saying the necessarily are, but just arguing against the point that they can't be.
>but its easier to just make part of a brain bigger until rudimentary consciousness emerges than it is to hone mechanistic behavioral pathways, considering how evolution actually works
Yeah makes sense. A bunch of if-else statements will approach the complexity of basic counsciousness anyway but they'll completely fail in a new scenario that a conscious being would be able to improvise in.

>>5114271
>Simple self awareness is knowing you exist and are not someone else
>Being self aware means knowing you are walking and where in space and time you are, but not necessarily why
That's not wrong, but I don't think it's the definition people typically think of when they hear the term. By that definition a pathfinding algorithm is self aware.

File: ResizedImage_2026-04-05_1(...).jpg (314 KB, 791x1408)

314 KB JPG

My cat not only recognizes herself in the giant mirror next to her cat tree, but she also likes to look at it from different angles and spies on me with it.

>>5114276
A pathfinding algorithm never knows where it is and that it is. You probe its state to determine how the algorithm has progressed up to that point.

A self aware animal is familiar with its own state as a fact. It contains the pathfinding algorithm, the observer, and the probing mechanism all at once.
It can also want, not just… progress. That’s a common trait, desiring.

It just doesn’t have to know or ask why it does something or wants something.

>>5114285
>A pathfinding algorithm never knows where it is and that it is. You probe its state to determine how the algorithm has progressed up to that point.
Well true. I guess I meant more so an NPC that's running the algorithm. The NPC knows its own XYZ coordinates and velocity. That would technically fit your definition of self awareness.
>It can also want, not just… progress. That’s a common trait, desiring.
True, but that's going beyond the definition you posted.

>>5114221
It's not really relevant. Everyone wants to pretend animals are dumb to justify mistreatment.
>>5114283
OP's test is also probably heard to measure because there's intelligence within species. Some cats are smart, some are retarded. Probably lots of other species where they happened to test dumb ones.

>>5114289
Sorry you don’t get it bruv. Being too literal is an incelmaxxed cope for gigaplebs that can’t nuancemog brainlets.
In other word, I didnt’t just expound, I clarified. The reference to desire wasn’t beyond the concept I put forth. It was beyond your limited interpretation of it.
–.
*sips wine*
*pets cat*

You now remember 6yo children in africa failed to recognize their own reflections

>>5114283
Kitty!