Do animals experience emotions? Do they think? Do they have a life history? These are all questions that researchers have been studying extensively recently. As a pet owner, I have bonded with several animals over the years and would have to answer "yes" to all three of these questions simply based on the feedback I receive from the animals I encounter. There is no doubt that a significant bond forms between you and your pet as you get to know each other, just like in human-to-human relationships. As you spend more time with your pet, you feel like you get to know them better and they get to know you. As we spend more and more time with them, we form a sense of that animal's personality and can list the detailed character traits that make them unique. Have you ever wondered if animals have a sense of self, similar to what we have? What is it like to have a conscious experience as that animal? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Today, the topic of animal consciousness is hotly debated and is at the forefront of discussions about animal cruelty rights and ethical business practices, which is why I believe it is an urgent issue to discuss. Consciousness itself is a complex topic, not easily defined. However, in PHI: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul, Giulio Tononi formulated a clear understanding to help define consciousness with what is termed “PHI”. Tononi explains that PHI is “integrated information is the information generated by a system above its parts, where the parts are those that, taken independently, generate the majority of the information”. Simply put, PHI consciousness is measured by multiple signals and experiences that culminate in a single subjective conscious experience. Now, if an animal truly has a conscience, just like humans have a conscience, these creatures deserve validity and some rights. So, what determines consciousness? American philosopher Thomas Nagel's point of view on the subject is expressed in “What is it like to be a bat?”. Nagel believed that all animals shared a “subjective character of experience.” Nagel said that an animal is conscious "if and only if there is something it means to be that organism – something it means to the organism". In other words, an animal will be considered a conscious being if it can experience a subjective reality that belongs uniquely to it. That said, I think it's important to attempt to enter the consciousness of another being before you can even begin to make decisions that will affect that animal. If you have a pet, you have surely seen the animal barking or meowing and kicking its legs as if they are running while sleeping. Animals sleep, and when they sleep, they dream of things similar to you and me. MIT studies show that not only do animals dream of catching their prey and other primal desires, but they also replay memories and solve problems while dreaming. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology report that animals have complex dreams and can memorize and remember long sequences of events while they sleep. This shows an extreme indication of intelligence and precious life. MIT researchers contributed to this study and demonstrated that animals are able to reevaluate their experiences when they are not in the midst of them. The research examined the firing patterns of a collection of individual cells to determine the content of rats' dreams. Now “we know that they are actually dreaming and that their dreams are connected to experiencesreal." In Sy Montgomery, The Soul of an Octopus, the author and a colleague witness a sight that few have the chance to see. They saw an eel fast asleep, dreaming. What was so fascinating for Montgomery to witness were the voltmeter flashes coming from the eel as if he were in a deep dream state. Even animals that are difficult to glimpse have intense dreams just like us. For example, pigs are fascinating beings, really quite intelligent and emotional. To possess intelligence and rely on past experiences to solve problems and experience emotions, consciousness must be present. The Humane Society's Institute for Science and Policy has conducted numerous studies focusing on pig perspective taking. Throughout the general comparative literature and across a variety of species, perspective taking has been associated with many other cognitive abilities, including self-awareness, theory of mind, intentional deception, and empathy. Even the most basic forms, paying attention to visual cues and taking a visual perspective, require you to take a position other than your own and usually use that information to your advantage. Studies highlight that pigs exhibit complex abilities to use and manipulate conspecifics to their advantage in social foraging situations. In a protocol that required pigs to search for hidden food in pairs, when one pig was informed of the location of the food and the other was naïve to the information. The uninformed pig was able to take advantage of the informed pig's knowledge by following it to the food source and moving it, thus reducing the time it took the naive pig to find food on its own. Furthermore, exploited pigs modified their behavior in response to this exploitation in competitive foraging trials; the foraging behavior of previously exploited individuals changed to adapt to circumstances and to decrease the chances of being exploited. For example, subordinates were more likely to display food-oriented behavior when the chances of getting to the food before their exploiters were high. In a similar study, subordinates increased their foraging speed to keep up with exploiters. A sign of conscience and self-awareness, this demonstrates the pigs' ability to put their own consciousness into the perspective of another, as well as seeing themselves as a separate being from other pigs, to solve the problems faced. Now think for a moment about what it would be like to have a conscious experience as a pig on a factory farm. Not being able to walk because your living conditions prevent you from standing, being aware of your babies being taken away from you minutes after birth, feeling helpless and being aware of your impending death while all your friends are slaughtered in front of your your eyes. Simply recognizing the existence and legitimacy of another being as having a unique and different experience from our own will make us question how we live our lives and our effects on others. This leads me to wonder whether the long-standing denial of animal consciousness is linked to the meat and dairy industry and its control and mistreatment of animals. If the majority does not reflect on the experience of the animal they will soon eat, then there is no moral guilt for the harm suffered by an innocent being. Over the past hundred years, intensively farmed animals for food have become normalized and expected to be part of an American's diet. Large-scale meat consumption is a recent lifestyle adoption.