DAVID: From this article I can easily believe that parrots have a form of consciousness very parallel to ours, similar but different in kind. > > dhw: As we have said before, all species (broad sense) are different in kind. A parrot/ant/elephant will think like a parrot/ant/elephant.-But I am insisting on a major difference in kind at the mental/consciousness level, so great that we have to be considered very special. Of course ants don't look like elephants. Their differences at the level of mentation are not as great as ours from all others.