Consciousness vs Awareness

Creating a new thread from the Quotes thread:

"It is not condescending to let the opponent know that his knowledge in that particular subject is not sufficient and still treat them like equal, otherwise Socrates dialogs were all complacent and wouldn't dominate the history of mankind's wisdom. (even though he also was executed by the mobs of his time, as I was in a way smaller scale so many times in this site.)" - Ddavidd

First, how can you judge whose knowledge on this subject is sufficient? Are you an expert? Do you have a Masters or PhD in animal science, philosophy, or a field related to the topic? Have you published peer reviewed journals? I just want to establish a base here. You compare yourself to Socrates because you've read a few books, that's my interpretation. I don't think Socrates would agree with your alleged expertise or your assertion that you have been the victim of a mob. If someone calls you out, you put on a grand show of being the victim of a grave offense.
As for me, I took philosophy classes at UC Davis, began my Bachelor's as an animal science major, and obtained a degree in psychology with a minor in sociology, but I would definitely not say I am an expert on the topic of animal consciousness and awareness. Maybe I have learned a thing or two.

Okay, and you say that you befuddled a "highly regarded professor" (and later on say, "The topic is very delicate that even experts sometimes are confused"). This professor could not at first grasp the topic, right? I don't think her admission insinuates inferiority, but I do think your deliverance of the story insinuates your sense of superiority. Might as well claim you're more knowledgeable than a highly regarded professor. That's bold. Excuse me if I question that claim.

It seems like you're also suggesting you have a superior scientific mind since you love knowledge more than your ego. You've repeatedly suggested that -I- love my ego more than knowledge. I disagree. I am open to new information that disproves my preconceived notions. I love learning. I also recognize when other possibilities are present. Your comments indicate that in your 'enlightenment,' you have closed the door to contrary information. That is what I consider valuing the ego over knowledge.

I can't tell if you mean to write "slope" or "slop" sometimes. Slop is more offensive.

Let's get back to the topic so we can share our knowledge and maybe learn something new. All voices are welcome.

Ddavidd, will you please provide your definitions for consciousness and awareness? Also, it would be great if you could provide at least one peer reviewed journal or scientific experiment (with a summary) from the last century that backs up your assertion that animals cannot think and behave entirely based on instinct. That is your assertion, correct? That even vegetables have awareness, but animals, excluding humans, do not have consciousness.

EDIT: I'm ordering a few books off Amazon and going to look into taking a community college class on this subject. For my own interest, but I also think animals have a lot to teach us. Since I'm pursuing my masters in Social Work, it could be useful. Why not!
If anyone's interested, here are the books...
1) The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Montgomery, Sy
2) Animal Wise: How We Know Animals Think and Feel by Morell, Virginia
3) The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy -- and Why They Matter by Marc Bekoff

I'll have these books in a couple days and start reading right away :)

Fist I am glad you feel better
also I am glad this conversation enticed your curiosity and made you study it farther. This was the main purpose of starting these conversations: enticing enthusiasm about knowledge.

Pleas allow me to address your discussion with the same attitude that you did mine and do not cry out and say I belittled you when you lose the battle, in which you will. This is not condescending it is confidence. I know what I am talking about.
Now you saying I was condescending to challenge the professor. You must be kidding. Sometime I think I would wake up and see these all are only a bad dream and you are only puling my legs. If you have any academic experience specially in philosophy you would know, they always encourage this kind of attitude and regard it as being good thinker.

Jain: "I can't tell if you mean to write "slope" or "slop" sometimes. One is much more offensive than the other."
It is so obvious I miss spell slope and it would be utterly meaningless to claim building something on slop. Here you like your other friends conveniently, in one eye jack manner, taking advantage of my dyslexia.

And please for crying out loud tell me what is insulting in saying building your argument on a slope. It means it would claps. When we argue, we can say that your argument is week... being this thin skinned you have no business to discus, specially philosophy. I know after this I would neve discus with you again.

About the authority, I did not need to see your credential to figure that you are so un expert in this subject, you even never heard about such subject. Non of you, except Larry addressed the question right, even though his answer was not right, at list he knew what he was talking about.

Now never mind all these petty back and forth. Proving me wrong, please enlighten me what is consciousness (do not throw dictionary definition at me), let us know with your own words. And explain what is the difference between human and animal's consciousness in your exert opinion.

Ddavidd, I'm going to make dinner, but just to clarify: I really did think you meant to write "slop," not slope. I was confused when later you wrote slope and realized maybe that's what you meant all along... that's part of why I found your posts so condescending. I thought you were calling other people's arguments "slop," as in either "sloppy" or muddy mush that pig's eat. I'm not taking advantage of your dyslexia. It makes me sad if you think I'm that cruel.

"being this thin skinned you have no business to discus, specially philosophy. I know after this I would neve discus with you again."

Wow. Well if you feel that way, maybe we should call it a day. I'm disappointed.

"Now you saying I was condescending to challenge the professor. You must be kidding."

Nope. I meant how you told your story exhibits your feeling of superiority over others. There really was no point to your story except to toot your own horn.

I'll come back to this and if you don't want to continue the discussion, no one's forcing you... maybe someone else will be interested. My next post will include my personal definitions, though I still have yet to see yours. I've asked a few times now.

What's wrong with the dictionary definition of consciousness and awareness? Is it because some dictionaries use one another to define itself?

I hate it when this weird sensation keeps bugging me to do the right thing.

For purpose of adding some clarity, let me go back to what started this conversation. This quote by Robert Frost:

"Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words."

Ddavidd's opinion to the quote was as follows:

"Robert Frost is(was) a good poet, but probably not a good thinker. Here he does not know what he is talking about. There are almost no thoughts ever possible without the words."

And what in the world???????????????

Did you edited your statement?

What happened to what you previously had stated "There is not any thoughts ever possible without the words"?

why did you change it to "almost"?

Are you now agreeing with me without actually given me any credit? That's cheap. I am now actually offended.

See Jain you can't answer small question I asked. You do not know what even conciseness is and the difference of it in animal and human. And instead of listening, beating around the bush and either criticizing my scientific attitude or throwing you credential at me. You either know it or not? Pleas answer or admit that you do not know and I would graciously explain it to you without expecting any reward for spending this huge energy to convey two simple (seemingly) words to an egomaniac audience who hide their bewilderment behind criticizing and nit piking my scientific manners. Anyway please answer the damn question, no more break time for you.

hiraeth, it was referred to Jain I asked her specific question I did not want her to go surf in internet for she threw her credentials at me to discredit my authority (only in this subject in this site among us) and I am going to prove that unlike her I know what I am talking about, after Jain giving up beating around the bush.
But my friend you can not find the difference and the deep meaning of consciousness and awareness in any dictionary even if it is oxford or Cambridge. Your resourcefulness though is appreciated

Everlasting, yes, I modified my state as soon as I realized how unhealthy the situation it becoming and everyone would be nitpicking everything I said. But my general statement is as merit as it was 100%. Without words (concept) there are very primitive thinking possible. Those thinking belongs to Neanderthals not the sublime poetry of Robert Frost.
And I did not want to discredit your quote. I felt obligated to tell to those (perhaps non-in here) who are interested, that lots of this alluring shining quotes mean nothing in real. But I am so glad I caused you to double check my posts and surf in internet, and enticed your curiosity to gather some information about the subject.

"See Jain you can't answer small question I asked."

See what? That you asked for my definitions once and I said I would post them in my next post? This is my next post and definitions are below.

The only one beating around a bush is you, Ddavidd. You've been asked in one way or another to give your definitions of awareness and consciousness not once, not twice, not thrice, but FOUR times. Your definitions are overdue.

I will post my definitions now, which are loose, vague, and I'm willing to adapt them. We're establishing a foundation here after all.

My definitions off the top of my head...
Awareness: Involves the senses, emotions, and/or cognition, and does not require understanding of something. A mental reflex that can be voluntary or involuntary, like instinctual behavior.
Consciousness: One can be aware without being conscious, but one cannot be conscious without being aware. Consciousness is a deeper understanding of something; deriving meaning or understanding purpose.

"she threw her credentials at me to discredit my authority (only in this subject in this site among us) and I am going to prove that unlike her I know what I am talking about, after Jain giving up beating around the bush."

Have I wronged you by bringing up my education? I'm stating facts. I did take philosophy classes. I did get a degree in psychology. Facts. Besides, I think you missed the point. I have these "credentials," but they do NOT make me an expert. That's the whole point. I don't claim to know what I'm talking about, but I do know a thing or two, which is exactly what I wrote the first time. What are your credentials? If they include having read a few books, I'd love to read the same books so I can catch up. If you have a Masters or Ph.D., I imagine you have loads of access to peer reviewed articles and recent studies confirming your assertions, and maybe even your own published work. I'd love to read whatever you have to offer that further explains and supports your assertions.

"Egomaniac audience."

Anyone who disagrees with you or questions your posts is an egomaniac. Got it.

Jain: "Anyone who disagrees with you or questions your posts is an egomaniac. Got it."

Not true you got it upside down. If you read carefully or at least correctly what I said, from the get go I encouraged Larry's disagreement and called it healthy, so as everlasting, who I tolled: I understood that it was a hard subject to comprehend, and gave her hope that she will, that was all I meant by the enlightened thing. It was you the aggressor and miss interpreter as always. I t was you who jumped and said I think I know better than everyone else , I am condescending, belittling ... said who the heck I think I am, what is my credential and bragged your credentials.
Though now I give you a little leeway for the slope misspelling in my part. That would be wrong because everlasting might be one of the last person who deserve to be called slop.

Let both stop this B.S. and talk business. I shall tell you about my credential later.

Your description of conciseness as you humbly (to my surprise) admitted is very incomplete.
Also, it is wrong in the most part, and to my surprise you contradicted yourself in a short description. But I do not want to penalize you and your new born honesty (in your admission of not knowing) it actually shows that you have potential.
The word consciousness is scandalously vague and hard to put finger at. some mistake it with wakefulness in opposed to sleeping or death. So in that matter even vegetables have consciousness.
Also study shows that even in sleep we have some consciousness or as Pavlov said, part of our brain stays awake therefor we dream.

Per Aristotle chart, that I am so lazy to find now, animal have soul but limited soul, though not conciseness because conciseness is related to 'ration' and ration is only human. And we all know animals can not contemplate. We think they do, because we put ourselves in their shoes.
Animal have some subjective experience of life but all they do is to gather those experiences and react upon them. They can not contemplate and classify those experiences in concepts. They are not able to go through the prosses of universality and individuality, otherwise they would start to talk and thir forehead would start to increase. :) :)
Human being however use the words. Words are not just the replacement of object individually. (PAY ATTENTION HERE) when we say tree we are talking about everything that has the similar characteristic - as having stalk branches, leaves, roots, life....) there are no tree in the universe, there are only this tree or that tree. One in the park or the other in front of Jain's house. As I said there are no general trees, there are only specific trees. We as human found the universalities of all these objects (you can call them concepts) and name them as tree, birds, stone, river... these words are very important because each represent a concept.
Then we even make concept from the universality of another concept. For example, pigeon is a concept that universally represent all the similar bird in our mind, later we see finch which we fallow the same pattern. We see the uniqueness and similarities of all the specific birds that could be classified as finch, then we see falcon and eagle and so on.
Later we see all these concepts of different flying objects have some similarity that we name it bird. It distinguishes them from mammals and Aquatics.
Now imagine how many difficulty mankind has gone through to classify and fit all these concepts in words, it does not finish here. We also conceptualise thing that are not tangible, like feelings, thoughts, expression, beauty... We structure them in sentences and through the process of inference and induction, we create more complicated concept and again land mark them with words.
So without the words the only thought are about the instantaneous objects, and objects of experience. We do not see that this table in this house has the table-ness in common, with all the tables. We just see a pile of wood. We do not know what the wood is, we just instinctively know if we are woodpecker we could make a nest or this and that.
So Mr. Frost got it all opposite: emotion, inspirations..., found their thoughts through words and a poetical mind see them more magnificently through his/ her talent , then modify them in right words.

To be continued

Okay. "Let's both stop the B.S. and talk business," then you go on to insult me several times...

"humbly (to my surprise)" --
"to my surprise you contradicted yourself in a short description"
"your new born honesty"
"it actually shows that you have potential"

That's a lot of belittling packed into three sentences.

I've been dissecting your sentences with the hope you'll be able to recognize how you belittle others. Not many people on this site would try again and again to get through to you as you repeatedly insult them, sling false accusations, and shape stories to flatter yourself. If you need me to explain why each one of these phrases is belittling, I will. I am not PERSONALLY hurt, just to clarify, since you misunderstand the point in my bringing all of this to your attention, which is: You will get along better with others when you learn humility and tact. The "mob" may be "after you" on PnQ because of your projection of superiority, not because you are enlightened while everyone else is an egomaniac.

----

"The word consciousness is scandalously vague and hard to put finger at. some mistake it with wakefulness in opposed to sleeping or death. So in that matter even vegetables have consciousness."

Starting from here, your post is incredibly interesting and has given me a lot to think about. I will need time to research and respond. Thank you for beginning to explain the two concepts as you understand them. I appreciate your openness. While you wait a few days for my response, maybe others have thoughts to contribute, and you are of course welcome to continue. I noticed the "To be continued" at the end of your post.

I said BOTH stop B.S.
you were not humble before. You put me down and throw you credential at me. called me egomaniac and condescending and belittler maniac. Now that I praised you for your new born humbleness in this, (conversation) YOU get offended. You get offended even when I say I found potential in you, perhaps why I did not see it from beginning.
You get offended even when I said you contradicted yourself. In what land, in what university, in what universe, where, they get offended by saying to the opponent: you contradict yourself????? Isn't it the reason that we converse?????
I could car less if others like you, support you, they all are wrong. It is nothing but a severe cold coma's epidemic.
You condemning yourself here from any constrictive argument, because the residue of this is going to sty with you. You study psychology, you should know that. Your skin will remain thin until you do something about it.

You contradict yourself here: ((Consciousness)): One can be aware without being ((conscious)). And some more but never mind. And you did not even pay attention that I asked you something else and you answered another. It shows that how you read my posts.

Jain: "I am not PERSONALLY hurt, just to clarify, since you misunderstand the point in my bringing all of this to your attention, which is: You will get along better with others when you learn humility and tact."
That is not truthful. you are hurt your reactions are in supper conflictive phase. You jump up from smallest illusion of insult. And "others" are as wrong as you if in your side. They all have lost something precious and irreplaceable that I did not. Therefore, even my existence is an insult and belittling to them.
When I am right I do not care about getting along with thin skin people who can not tolerate anything but flattery. And you know what you can do with your tact!!
"Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth." Mahatma Gandhi

You don't know me. I have been humiliated beyond your imagination out and in this site.
I am honest and frank. I give it to you straight forward, I hate when people bastardize the situation like now. you haven't add anything to the science of the conversation but everything to the attitude of it and bragged about your education but said not one word worthy of a scientific discussion.

From now on I, by myself stop this B.S. and you can misunderstand, miss judge me, put me down, disregard all my goodness, that are beyond the scope of your understanding, as you please.
My explanation was not finished. I am a little down now I finish this as I promised and we end this.

"You put me down"

If telling you to be respectful and explaining how specific comments belittle others is putting you down, then yes, I put you down. Have you considered that when someone says you belittle people, they're telling you that YOU put people down? That's what I keep trying to bring to your attention.

"Throw your credential at me."

I brought up my relevant education to explain how I have 'this experience,' so I may have a little knowledge, but it does NOT make me an expert. I won't apologize for spending 4 years studying related subject matter and then bringing it up because it's relevant. I didn't "throw" my education at you. You make it sound like my education is a personal insult.
My follow up question was what makes you an expert? You continue to avoid answering me, which makes me think you have read a book by Aristotle and deemed yourself enlightened.

"called me egomaniac and condescending and belittler maniac."

I didn't call you an egomaniac or a 'belittler maniac' (frankly, I don't even know what that means). You used the word egomaniac to describe others here on PnQ. Nobody called you one. If you think that term is offensive, maybe you shouldn't use it. I said you are often condescending and belittling... I stand by that statement whole-heartedly as you continue to post condescending and belittling comments.

"Now that I praised you for your new born humbleness."

You think I should be flattered that you called my humbleness new born? Or flattered that you're surprised by my humbleness? Ddavidd, I'm not a complete moron. That's the definition of a backhanded compliment. It was meant to be an insult. I don't care if you insult me, but I do care that you grasp how rude your comments are on PnQ. You need to reign your anger in when addressing others, especially regular members.

"I could car less if others like you, support you..."

Do you know why I care if others like me and support me? Because I care what other people think and I welcome respectful, constructive criticism, as well as positive feedback. I really care about how I treat other people and I care about how successful I am as a moderator, as a professional, and as a friend. To be successful, I have to be able to communicate effectively with people who do and do not agree with me. I think effective communication is a low priority for you, and you have yet to prove me wrong.

"...they all are wrong"

This comment highlights your feeling of superiority over those who disagree with you. Everyone is wrong because you are always right. We're all a bunch of egomaniacs in a coma, right?

"And if you knew me I have been humiliated beyond your imagination out and in this site."

You have mocked, ridiculed, and humiliated others on this website throughout the years, and you have not once taken personal responsibility for it. I advise you to look inward.

I feel I have gone above and beyond to explain how your personal attacks are perceived on this site, but it's served only to enrage you rather than encourage you to self reflect. I hope you will respond only once more with "B.S." and then we can move on. Rest assured, I'm done. I feel secure knowing I tried to explain my interpretation of your comments. Now it's out of my hands.

You may continue on the subject of consciousness and awareness at any time. No rush. That is, however, something I am very interested in reading from you!
Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for my books to arrive...

"You contradict yourself here: ((Consciousness)): One can be aware without being ((conscious))."

Can you explain the contradiction? I said one can be aware without being conscious, but one cannot be conscious without being aware. It's like saying one can be a fruit without being a peach, but one cannot be a peach without being a fruit. It makes sense.

I wanted to elaborate more about the construction of meaning and grammar and how thinking is impossible for animal. But anyone who do not know that, would not have use for the rest of this argument.

Now the difference between consciousness and awareness: Awareness is not oral or has anything to do with words, but consciousness is and has. Plants, animals, and human all share awareness. Awareness evolved only in existing beings from a form of reflection, because all the beings, live or solid (dead), reflect in each other. Life is when this corresponding is evolved to self awareness. awareness evolves in animals, and in primates are more complexed and elevates to Neanderthals.
In human awareness turns to consciousness which is rational. Human not only is aware of his/her being and surrounding , s/he is conscious of it, because s/he can contemplate the word I am. Animal are only aware, of it. They do not go any farther.

When Descartes said, 'I think therefore I am' he is pointing at the state of consciousness. He is conscious of the concept of "to be". He says (in Meditation) there is nothing certain, not even the existence of God. Everything we see and experience could be some masquerades of an evil demon. He goes on:I am not even certain if these people out of my window are real. (he saw matrix five-six centuries ago, out of sheer genius)
He continues: the only thing that is certain is that ' I ' am, so the only thing remain is this very thought that I am conducting. It gives certainty that it is me producing this very thought. So: "I think there for I am." ( he could not foresee that the evil demon could even put that very thoughts in his mind) Then from this base of certainty, he goes on and prove the existence of God.
See, he only could find that out in state of consciousness, by being aware, that he is conscious. And that consciousness only comes to surface, where the CONCEPT of "being" exists in the word TO BE.

In my opinion, animals are somehow more connected to the universe because they see the universe without the filter of contemplation. This is against Aristotelian and platonic view which believe ration is highest, higher than soul. I think soul is higher than ration. As a thinker once said a human liver is highly aware but its awareness hasn't evolved to the state to deny its own existence ( meant brain).

Here we go, I covered everything as brief as I could, I curtailed and eliminated lots of corners for frankly all this was just a waste of time.

Before I post my thoughts, just for clarification your definition of awareness and consciousness is as follows:

awareness: knowledge of the outside world (in terms of events, et cetera)
consciousness: having awareness and having rationale and language

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Not quite, but somehow, Go on

There's no point continuing my thoughts if my premise is faulty. Can you please rephrase them for me briefly?

Not the knowledge of outside world. There are no knowledge in awareness. that is the point.
the sense of existing and feeling and connecting with the outside world. But the sensation is inward.

edited

Carlos Castaneda has the most accurate definition of awareness. Which is not even explainable. Because it has nothing to do with words.
Frost ( that I love his works) in my view would have been on the money if replaced the word thought with awareness in the said quote.

OK...just signing in on my travels :)

I was aware of how the other thread was panning out before I consciously forgot about it as other things in my life seemed more important and I focused on them but...I guess, subconsciously it was still in the back of my mind. I was unaware until today, that a separate thread had been made to deal with the thoughts that were leading the quotes thread into disarray so..my question to all who are participating in this one..

Do you consider awareness a prerequisite for consciousness?

I will try to sign in again soon :)

Thank you for clarifying your definitions ddavidd.

"Animal have some subjective experience of life but all they do is to gather those experiences and react upon them. They can not contemplate and classify those experiences in concepts. They are not able to go through the prosses of universality and individuality, otherwise they would start to talk and thir forehead would start to increase. :) :)"

Regarding animals and their ability to rationalize/conceptualize/think: elephants, humans, and apes have a developed neocortex which is responsible for several higher-order functions including but not limited to language, cognition, sensory perception.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/03/08/3158077.htm
https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/neocortex.htm
https://www.elephantvoices.org/elephant-sense-a-sociality-4/elephants-are-large-brained.html

It's not too much of a stretch to think they are capable of thought. One of the hallmark tests for intelligence is to see whether animals are capable of building tools since it demonstrates reasoning and some rationale for it.

Elephants use sticks to scratch themselves (considered a tool since it serves a purpose). Even going as far as using mud to silence wooden bells, so their owner wouldn't hear them, so they can steal bannanas in peace.

http://www.natureinstitute.org/pub/ic/ic5/elephant.htm

Regarding chimpanzee on tool usage:
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150818-chimps-living-in-the-stone-age
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cp7_In7f88

Octopuses using coconuts as shells:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091214121953.htm

Given all that, certain animals have been shown to be capable of thought and rationalizing, this in addition to their language (however primitive) indicates they have a consciousness based on your definition of consciousness being 'having awareness + ability to rationalize + language".

Question for you, what about toddlers prior to learning to talk. Do you think they have consciousness?

"Do you consider awareness a prerequisite for consciousness?"

Yes, awareness is having perception of one's environment (both figuratively and literally). I think nearly all definitions of consciousness include some form of thinking; you cannot think without some form of stimuli/understanding that's attained from awareness.

When I first started researching consciousness I thought only humans and higher animals were capable of being considered "conscious", however the deeper I went the more blurred the lines became.

As mentioned previously, even defining the word is difficult.

Here is the best definition I have found, it is "17 criteria for consciousness" and used as a basis for a few journals I've read on the subject,
http://scienceblogs.com/developingintelligence/2007/04/25/defining-consciousness-17-prop/
It includes self-awareness, present-centeredness, brain activity, learning, etc. A very good list in my opinion.

I've also read articles on plant consciousness such as this one -
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4594572/

It takes my favourite theory of the biological origin of consciousness in animals and applies it to plants. The theory is Orch OR, created by Hameroff (an anathesiologist), and Sir Roger Penrose, a renowned mathematician who has worked/collaborated with Stephen Hawking.

Original theory is here-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction

When asking botany graduates if they consider plants to be conscious, the resounding answer is "yes". But to what extent is widely debated. Thus the criteria is required, and even that is still debated. So I think you need to move this conversation away from just animals. I believe even bacteria have a certain level of consciouness. Those with flagellum capable of movement make a choice to turn left or right, even when absent of environmental stimuli. Even an amoeboid organism has been shown to solve mazes.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v407/n6803/abs/407470a0.html

The only certainty is uncertainty. Hope this helped your conversation in this thread.

You welcome
Finally some air I was suffocating.

Thank you for trying to search the subject and investigate.
I will try to check all those links, but quiet number of clips you two have provided. I can not go to the details, that would take insurmountable amount of writing.

From the beginning, I said the concept of awareness and consciousness are used very loose in literatures, amongst people and scullers as well, and are very scandalous, and their definitions are all over places.
The animal behaviours study, illustrates that some of them can do marvels, change their behaviors in front of obstacles and even some of them make primitive tools. All of the thing they do is built to their genetic structure and have complicated instinctive structures. In facing obstacle or by training, they could go so far, but never as far as reading or have anything to do with words. I believe we have covered this. Non-of them eve could read books, or write sublime poetry as dear Frost could. ( love his poetry). There would never be a phenomenology of mind written by any species except human.
Now you can widely use the meaning of these two words and in this case as shown in both interesting posts above, there is no way to distinguish between them. They replace one another randomly. Only in philosopher's definition however, they, have each distinguishable criterions.
Still scientist replace and mix up the terms awareness, conciseness and wakefulness.
We have also the word subconscious as Hellon mentioned that is the state of unaware consciousness. It also refers to how brain is conscience while it is sleeping or even awake ( but silent). It is also about bodily awareness which according to "don John" is keener than wakefulness.
According to philosophers subconscious is nothing but bodily and unvocal awareness, or vocal consciousness without the regular part of consciousness being aware of it.

back to consciousness: Even when people come out of coma they say they regain consciousness. They use that word widely for animal, regaining their consciousness. But non of these is the consciousness as the definition. They are loosely implemented. I can bring lots more clip to refute my main argument, made by scientist more expert in subject of their study than me (not even comparable) but non-of them defy my main claim that what they say is not refutation of the main explanation of these two term as been given.
Animal thinking is a loose term: the smart monkey who solve puzzle, or a dog that walks on the rope, do not know what they are doing. They do it only for treat, and what some might name it ration, is in primitive scale, never like human. If we agree on this, we have a base to convers otherwise there would be just a waste of our time in both side.
So, if we agree we have the base to built a consensus, let's place what they do (any living being except human), in the criteria of awareness, and what we do, that is evolved awareness, in one of consciousness.

I read a book when I was child about the insect's collective awareness and intelligence that is amazing. In Africa has been observed when kilometers spread of ants, in their migration, come across a river, the head and the tail of the horde simultaneously turn to other direction. It is hard to speculate how they communicate that fast, not having languages, (they communicate but they do not speak (unless in cartoons).

We are not here to solve the mystery of existence. We are here to see if we can stablish if it is possible to rationalise without using words without concepts. The seashell thinking is without using concept. And without using concept what has been called 'ration' only in the figure of speech is ration. It is not the philosophers definition of ration.

"Philosophy is by its nature something esoteric, neither made for the mob nor capable of being prepared for the mob." Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Edited:
Peter Russell, 'Spirit of Now'::
" Before we can begin to consider the evolution of consciousness, we have to ask when consciousness first arose. Are human beings alone conscious, or are other creatures also conscious? Is an animal such as a dog, for example, conscious?
Dogs may not be aware of many of the things we are aware of. They are not conscious of much beyond their immediate world, the world defined by the span of their senses. They know nothing of lands beyond the oceans, or the space beyond the earth. Nor can dogs be aware of much beyond the present time. They know nothing of the course of history, or where it might be headed. They are not aware of their inevitable death in the same way that we are. They do not think to themselves in words, and they probably do not reason as we do. And they do not seem to have the self-awareness that we do; they certainly do not get caught up in concern for their own self-image, with all the strange behaviors that engenders. But this does not mean that dogs have no awareness at all.
Dogs experience the world of their senses. They see, hear, smell, and taste their world. They remember where they have been. They recognize sounds. They may like some people or things, and dislike others. Dogs sometimes show fear, and at other times excitement. When asleep, they appear to dream, feet and toes twitching as if on the scent of some fantasy rabbit. They clearly are not just a biological mechanism, devoid of any inner experience. To suggest that they are not conscious is absurd -- as absurd as suggesting that my neighbour across the street is not conscious.
Where dogs differ from us is not in their capacity for consciousness but in what they are conscious of. Dogs may not be self-aware, and may not think or reason as we do. In these respects they are less aware than we are. On the other hand, dogs can hear higher frequencies of sound than we do, and their sense of smell far surpasses our own. In terms of their sensory perception of the world around, dogs may be considered more aware than humans.
A useful analogy for understanding the nature of consciousness is that of a painting. The picture itself corresponds to the contents of consciousness; the canvas on which it is painted corresponds to the faculty of consciousness. An infinite variety of pictures can be painted on the canvas; but whatever the pictures, they all share the fact that they are painted on a canvas. Without the canvas there would be no painting.
The pictures that are painted on the canvas of consciousness take many forms. They include our perceptions of the world around, our thoughts, our ideas, our beliefs, our values, our feelings, our emotions, our hopes, our fears, our intuitions, our dreams and fantasies -- and more. But none of this would be possible if we did not in the first place possess the capacity for consciousness. Without it there would be no subjective experience of any kind."