It is also perhaps worth mentioning...
 

It is also perhaps worth mentioning that it is generally agreed that humans had a great advantage by learning how to harness energy. First rapid combustion (fire), then (much later) electricity.

Neither are available to aquatic thinkers...

We were lucky. That doesn't mean we're unique.

Back before the advent of tools such as PET scans if I told you "I am self-aware and believe I possess free will" you had to take my word for it. (Or not.) It seems with modern diagnostics it should be possible - if not now, within a few years - to make a more-objective determination of self-awareness, based on brain activity patterns.

Ray Kurzweil's latest PR campaign seems pertinent to the discussion:

[url=www.technologyreview.com/view/510121/ray-kurzweil-plans-to-create-a-mind-at-google-and-have-it-serve-you/]Ray Kurzweil Plans to Create a Mind at Google—and Have it Serve You[/url]: [i]The technologist speaks about an ambitious plan to build a powerful artificial intelligence.[/i]
[quote]Kurzweil’s AI will be designed to analyze the vast quantities of information Google collects and to then serve as a super-intelligent personal assistant. He suggests it could eavesdrop on your every phone conversation and email exchange and then provide interesting and important information before you ever knew you wanted it.[/quote]
I thought the NSA and Facebook already did that...

[QUOTE=davar55;325107]So what about thinking? I think thinking is an activity possible
only to a conscious being, but different in degree among all
such beings. Dogs and cats think...[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE="Iggy Pop"]The man stands between life and death.
The man thinks,
The horse thinks,
The sheep thinks,
The cow thinks,
The dog thinks.
The fish doesn't think.
The fish is mute.
Expressionless.
The fish doesn't think,
Because the fish knows
Everything.

The fish knows
Everything.
[/QUOTE]
[COLOR=lemonchiffon]The alt version of the Death Car (the music soundtrack is the same); performed over the end credits of Arizona Dream[/COLOR]

"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that." -- HAL.

Maybe the 2001 theory of the first act of free will is valid -
after using the first tool in an act of self-defense, that ape
finally had something to talk about, and developed language.
The potential capacity for these two capabilities had developed
evolutionarily.

from what I read, 'we' developed our intelligence thanks to our sweet thoot... but can't remember where I did.

[QUOTE=chalsall;325127]Two articles I think relevant to this discussion:

[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_use_by_animals"]Wikipedia -- Tool use by animals[/URL].

[URL="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/05/0502_dolphinvanity.html"]National Geographic -- Dolphins Recognize, Admire Themselves in Mirrors, Study Finds[/URL].[/QUOTE]

As a follow-on, here is the YouTube video of Betty the Crow making a hook in a piece of wire to retrieve a treat from a tube. (One of the comments says, "It looks like she's cleaning her bong.")

[YOUTUBE]TtmLVP0HvDg[/YOUTUBE]

The two main fictional beings mentioned in the OP are
clearly conscious / sentient, and clearly are intelligent / think.
They knew that much about themselves. So the last issue
would be do they have free will / reason.

While this might be in doubt to some readers / viewers, their
capacities / capabilities are evidence to me that, yes, they
possessed free will. While debatable, it always seemed to
me that both were struggling with their personhood, and that
that itself was strong evidence.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;325153]Back before the advent of tools such as PET scans if I told you "I am self-aware and believe I possess free will" you had to take my word for it. (Or not.) It seems with modern diagnostics it should be possible - if not now, within a few years - to make a more-objective determination of self-awareness, based on brain activity patterns.[/QUOTE]

A person asleep, or comatose, or catatonic, while not obviously
exxhibiting free will, might by such a means (PET or otherwise)
be determined to be capable of re-experiencing free will. It's
the capacity - not the exercise of it - that such tests might
help reveal. BTW this forum is a kind of testing ground - I'm
convinced everyone who's contributed to this thread has free will.

[QUOTE=chalsall;325134]It is also perhaps worth mentioning that it is generally agreed that humans had a great advantage by learning how to harness energy. First rapid combustion (fire), then (much later) electricity.

Neither are available to aquatic thinkers...[/QUOTE]Are you sure of that?

It's a good first approximation, undoubtedly, but there are exceptions both actual and potential. An actual exception is shown by those organism which kill their prey by electrocution.

Potential exceptions are much more varied. Fire _per se_ might be tricky; scaldingly hot water from geothermal sources is definitely available.

Humans have also made good use of animal power, wind power and water power. Only the second is in the least bit tricky for aquatic organisms to exploit but the invention of a sail to make surface transport easier shouldn't be beyond the intellectual capabilities of some cetacea and octopodes.

Remember that for almost all of human history fire was used almost exclusively for cooking food and hardly at all for technological purposes. Electricity is an extremely recent invention and profoundly technological civilizations have existed or millenia; high intelligence for much longer.

I would suggest that an aquatic technological civilization would have no more trouble with electricity than we do with either vacua or cryogenics.