while it's true animals can teach us a lot about ourselves, this obviously has a limit. I would rather believe alien beings interfered with a chimpanzee than the lowly animals could ever match our level of consciousness. when you start splitting consciousness into forms it just gets messier having to account for intelligence, emotions, empathy etc.
when I think of human consciousnesses and souls the first thing I notice is how unalike we are to other animals, it is uniquely human, and the comparison with other animals begins and ends there
Why do you say that? We have mountains of experimental evidence that animals of all kinds experience consciousness to a degree that rivals our own. We’re better at some forms of consciousness and they are better at others.