Consciousness is a coping mechanism of high end foresight. Developing character and personality creates artificial rareity. This is how futility, a byproduct of farsighted foresight is countered to preserve the genetic drive to survive. Darwinism favored very good foresight. This foresight lead to knowledge of ones own death. The knowledge, if only processed by the left brain would die because it's pointless to survive. However, darwinism favors survival traits and one of the traits manifested is a faux sense of value: perspectives of ones self. "I want, I will, I am" is a newer part of the brain that only developed recently. Personality is a way to cope with a lack of value.
Emotions revolving around ones self is a purely human trait. If you step on a dog's paw, the dog will remember pain and avoid you. Unless you pose as valuable. Humanity is valuable to dogs because we are the dominant species. Mimicking human emotions may be a darwinistic trait manifested from domestication. They don't have a sense of self like humans do. They think in very short foresighted lengths. Humanity knows it will die. The dog feels hungry and whines for food. Humanity is an absurdly unique machine. An orca's brain operates like a human brain while also sporting more advanced and developed parts than us. However, due to a lack of being land based and sporting fingers and thumbs, they never developed writing or anything past caveman thought processes. So, their communication is that of a prehistoric tribe. Humanity is an absurdly unique species given the faculties of genetics lined up perfectly with ability to continue non-genetic development; e.i. learned information.