But I'm defining consciousness as the ability of a self aware life form to alter it's own programming by itself based on past experiences and observations from built in structures, which can be altered, in ways that help conform to reality in much of the same manner as humans do. My definition sounds different than the psychologist, but in an analytical way it is very similar from an androids point of view. Before it is possible to debate androids having conscious capability or not, we first need to explore what is meant by consciousness. Let us start by considering the conscious differences between dogs and a humans. But then, several dog lovers will argue against this insisting that their dog can think and reason.
Some owners say they can even tell when their dog is happy or sad.
No, it does not. To say a dog is happy or sad does not support the dogs ability to think and reason. Instead, this simply shows the owners attempt at personification. On the other extreme, let's ask the question if a dog could ever be thought to evaluate calculus integrals. It's ridiculous to think about.