We commonly refuse to acknowledge that animals do have consciousness. Do we remember that at the end of the XIXth century some people refused to accept that black skinned men had consciousness? This was the result of what was thought to be the superiority of white men.

If we must express ourselves in terms of superiority, I would like to tell to the human world that we ourselves have created and hold the record for massacres within our own mammal race.

May be we should be reminded that we are all of the same species.
Animals can hunt those of other species but among mammals we are the best animal organisation that kills those of its own species.

Our difference to monkeys is due to our capacity of expression by language.

Thus, it is difficult to affirm that mammals cannot have consciousness and that humans are the only ones to have this privilege. The human brain was built by preserving the lower primitive bases like the limbic lobe that animals have also.

Animals have a perfect command of the consciousness of their species.

Animals have a collective awareness of their species because they seem to be aware of their developed strategies of safeguarding their species. Within the same species they use their awareness in order to feed and shelter themselves, recognize themselves, protect and reproduce themselves.

Various codes of behaviour between animals are thus worked out.

Communication : They have a coded language which enables them to communicate within various species. They communicate with their surroundings and send themselves messages of preservation.

Protection : They have to feed and shelter themselves untill they can reproduce themselves to insure the survival of their species.

Reproduction : Animals of the same species which are in competition, carry out the marking of territory. For many of them, the combats between males to have a female are codified so that they stop before a mortal wound is inflicted to the dominated male.
The most spectacular is the wedding parade as an animal language transmitted from generation to generation in order to ensure the safe guarding of the species.

What about the streams of consciousness?

Animals act as if they are aware of their species. They don't have self-awareness probably because they can't express themselves by means of articulated language.

Collective consciousness

On planet Earth, collective consciousness deals with the scope of living matter. It's not out of the question that other levels of collective consciousness exist in the Universe but it could also be possible that we are in fact the unique link, seeing as verbs and words are a mighty attribute of Man.
If Man is the only carrier of consciousness through the Universe, the term of universal consciousness directly applies to him. If Man shares consciousness with other "thinking creatures", which I am inclined to think, we should only speak of collective consciousness as a part of the universal one. Nowadays Man is probably creating a new collective one made of silicium. If it is so, this new collective consciousness is created by the red of individual consciousnesses.

Consciousness can show itself in different ways but always needs various levels of memory recollection which are the links that should not be missed.

The reitered transmission of the collective to the individual factor is currently known as the basic instinct of animals and the intelligence of man.

To be conscious in a collective way means to make correct use of the senses in order to create links with the environment. The neurosensory informations are at the origin of self awareness that Man has developed in an individual consciousness but at the same time, he endangers his own species. He hasn't acquired (or he has lost!) collective consciousness based on organic matter.

For animals, it seams that most of them don't have self awareness and individual consciousness of time. They don't have the feeling of being a unique creature except for some superior mammals.

Their memory of specific behaviour is conveyed through time. The transmission between individuals is done by structural hereditary groups within the species. The effects run through the organic family tree of the species. This capacity shows itself in the vegetable and animal world. It emerges as the essential and collective consciousness which is easier to see in insects and birds behaviours, than in superior mammals. The latter having evolved towards a development of the individual consciousness through education following birth.

Following the example of animals, we think that collective consciousness retains behaviour in order to protect the species. In this way, evolution proceeds by eliminating individuals who do not act in a way that helps the survival of the species.

individual consciousness