What do you even mean by self-awareness? Presumably you don’t mean fish contemplate their existence in the manner of Descartes. But almost all motile animals, and some non-animals, will move away from a noxious stimulus.
What do you even mean by self-awareness? Presumably you don’t mean fish contemplate their existence in the manner of Descartes. But almost all motile animals, and some non-animals, will move away from a noxious stimulus.
The definition is indeed a bit a tricky question, but there's a clear difference between the reflex of protecting oneself from danger or pain and higher level behavior that show that the subject realizes its own existence (the mirror test is the most famous instance of such an effect, but it's far from the only one, and doesn't only apply to the sense of sight).