elephant have been seeing their reflection when drinking water in lakes/ponds for millenia. Their brains evolved to identify with those patterns. Mirror test just proves if any species evolved enough to identify with that "pattern".
humans are just animals. nothing special. their consciousness is no different than say a crows or fox(cunning) consciousness. I would say one thing though....human brain is probably one of fluidest/flexible/organs ever created by nature. Take two humans...put one human in jail from birth (dont even teach language), and put other human in silicon-valley from birth, send him to stanford. Now, compare the "consciousness" of these two. Or even better, put the former human in jungle with monkeys from birth (dont teach him anything). I am sure there is lot of existing R&D/scientific articles on this.
humans are just animals. nothing special. their consciousness is no different than say a crows or fox(cunning) consciousness. I would say one thing though....human brain is probably one of fluidest/flexible/organs ever created by nature. Take two humans...put one human in jail from birth (dont even teach language), and put other human in silicon-valley from birth, send him to stanford. Now, compare the "consciousness" of these two. Or even better, put the former human in jungle with monkeys from birth (dont teach him anything). I am sure there is lot of existing R&D/scientific articles on this.