Earlier quoted context omitted.
> perhaps dimmer versions than the ones we're familiar with No, I think that's our subconscious desire to believe we are separate from the world around us speaking. They may experience and express feelings differently than we do, but that doesn't mean that experience is less meaningful.
I use the video game analogy for this. animals may be 8 bits, we're 32 bits. Still whatever bits games are running on, they use the same basic formulas (in the metaphor, these are our senses, emotions and abstractions). It's indeed evident that we share a lot with animals. Even if they may not think as much, and can't communicate like us. I also believe that most important times in our human lives, are quite animal..…
To take it further I'm equally as fine with me eating an 8-bit animal as I am with a 64-bit being coming into my house and eating 32-bit me :)