Well the rational soul is fundamentally different from the material souls of plants and animals. The rational soul is subsistant, which simply means that it exists in and of itself, while the souls of animals are not subsistant and do not survive apart from the body. That being said this doesn’t mean that the rational soul is independent of the body, it just means that its existence does require the body. The rational soul still requires the senses to feed it information, and from this information ideas are formed.
These ideas are not mere impressions of outside objects but are actually the very forms of these outside objects. For example the senses receive the impression of the roundness of a ball, and our mind (an aspect of the soul, not to be confused with the mere operations of the physical brain) takes from this impression and has the idea of “ball”. We can now apply this idea to other things, whether internally through imagination (which is a form of internal sensation created by the mind), to create objects, to express the definition of ball, and most remarkably through metaphor. We can take the idea of “time”, which is nothing but a series of events and change, and combine it with the idea of “circle” create a whole new idea of a time-loop. We never experience a time-loop, and nothing we know of “circle” properly applies to the idea of a time-loop, and yet we have this new idea none the less.
Consciousness then can be defined either as the experience of things, or the idea of things. If it is the experience of things then animals are conscious, but if it is the idea of self, the ability to abstract the idea of self from the experience of self, then animals are not conscious. I usually use conscious to mean the experience of things (synonymous with sentience), and rationality to mean our ability to abstract ideas, including an idea and concept of self beyond the mere experience of self.
Peace and God bless!
