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One thing that I thought was interesting about the conversation we had over whether animals do, in fact have an "I- function", is the comparison we made between the self awareness of animals and human babies. It seems that according to the mirror test that Professor Grobstein described, many human children probably wouldn't be considered to have the I-function, as understanding one's reflection in a mirror (and recognizing a dot on one's forehead as something that is undesirable) is not exactly innate. It makes me wonder, however, if the I-function simply develops with age/experience/experimentation or if it is a quality that can be trained?

I'm also not sure if I'd like to believe that humans are the only species with some sense of self awareness. I found an interesting article that described a mirror test in elephants- though only one of the elephants tested reacted to an X drawn on its face, most of the elephants in the study did not react to their reflections as if they were meeting a stranger. The elephants did, however, swing their trunks, moving them in and out of the mirror's view, to experiment with their own reflection, and afterwards began to experiment with their bodies in front of the mirror (on of the elephants used her trunk to pull her ear closer to the mirror). I think that this is more indicative of self awareness than attempting to rub a dot off its forehead- we wouldn't know if an animal likes or doesn't mind having an X on its forehead- but seeing their understanding of reflections seems to show some level of self awareness.