The vast majority of neurobiologists have long abandoned the Cartesian view of non-human animals as unconscious automatons—acknowledging instead the high likelihood that mammals and birds have mental experiences akin to subjective consciousness. Several lines of evidence are now extending those limits to all vertebrates and even some invertebrates, though graded in degrees as argued originally by Darwin, correlated with the complexity of the animal’s brain. A principal argument for this view is that the function of consciousness is to promote the survival of an animal—especially one actively moving about—in the face of dynamic changes and real-time contingencies. Cognitive ecologists point to the unique features of each animal’s environment and the specific behavioral capabilities that different environments invoke, thereby suggesting that consciousness must take on a great variety of forms, many of which differ substantially from human subjective experience.

中文翻译：

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对动物意识的深层根源和广泛分布的新视角

长期以来，绝大多数神经生物学家已经放弃了笛卡尔将非人类动物视为无意识自动机的观点——而是承认哺乳动物和鸟类极有可能拥有类似于主观意识的心理体验。现在有几条证据将这些限制扩展到所有脊椎动物，甚至一些无脊椎动物，尽管按照达尔文最初的观点分级，与动物大脑的复杂性相关。这种观点的一个主要论点是，意识的功能是促进动物——尤其是积极移动的动物——在动态变化和实时突发事件面前的生存。认知生态学家指出每只动物所处环境的独特特征以及不同环境引起的特定行为能力，