Their nervous systems are not self reflective about them, however, and they certainly don’t perform abstract meta-level reasoning about those wants and desires. Impulse-response is not consciousness, even if involves a simple reflective model of self image.
I agree they are very different and much more limited, but at the same time I think you and I might have different definitions for consciousness.
I define consciousness as that process which protects the body by adapting to external conditions, and endeavours to make offspring by adapting to the mating opportunities. It's a general definition based on things that are concrete and measurable, unlike many others. Consciousness is basically protecting the genes. It's how genes found a way to exist at large scale.
