Hi there Crank. Well I'm doing what I can while I'm waiting for the big brains to gind they way towards 42. Where the Whys and Hows I've offered up are lacking I'd appreciate some pin-point critique, and so proceed in understanding from there if I can.

As for animals, yeah I too would be very surprised if they were all devoid of any subjective experience. One unintentional implication of my parallel processing notion is it opens the possibility of machine consciousness. Care to accompany me up that garden path?