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Self-awareness, to me, also includes something along the lines of being able to make a choice or have a will. Does that also work?

Self-awareness is just self-awareness. You can see it in a dog or cat that suddenly realizes that it is the center of attention and people are laughing at it.

Choice and will are will-o'-the-wisps. A dog meandering about the neighborhood sniffing the droppings and checking out the garbage cans is making choices all over the place--or could he do anything else? A man ducking out on his wife to visit the local dive is making a choice, or could he do anything else? You can argue that only the human has free will, but my cat is "good" and uses his litter box when it amuses him and the carpet when it doesn't. Maybe he can't help himself and maybe he has free will. Darned if I can tell from outside his head.

Maybe he can't help himself and maybe he has free will. Darned if I can tell from outside his head.

My own suspicion here is that cats are the ultimate poster boys for free will.

I suppose that's fair enough. I was thinking more along the lines of abstract thought, so let me ask it this way, again for clarification. Take a word like "existence," as in consciousness being the ability to be aware of one's existence. "Existence" doesn't really exist, in the sense that it cannot be quantified. It has no measurable properties. It is not comprised of matter. "Existence" exists only in the sense that it is a concept, or a construct, that is grasped by a being with consciousness. Since we don't really know what is going on in the mind of a cat (leaving aside Balrog666's admission that he apparently is acquainted with the mind of a deer tick) let's stick to human consciousness. Is that fair to say?