Thinking and Awareness in Animals - Katie Lamp

Are animals aware of their existence? Can they think as humans do? Two books I read, "Minds of Their Own" by Lesley J. Rogers and "Animal Minds: Beyond Cognition to Consciousness" by Donald A. Griffin, consider these questions. In Rogers' book, he looks at the evolution of the brain in both humans and non-human animals and how the brain has developed in order to have consciousness, and then finally at what point in the evolution of the animal brain that consciousness could have developed. In Griffin's book, he looks at how animal communication that may seem incomprehensible to us because it is so different from how we communicate could actually offer us a look at what animals think and feel and how their communication is revealing these things. While the idea of animals having consciousness and cognitive abilities similar to humans may seem a bit odd to some people, these two books make a strong case for it.