Buddhist sensate animals

I can't resist the temptation here to insert a pitch for one of my favorite Buddhist teachings, applied to modern biological understanding.  Some animals are sensate and respond to instincts reinforced by pleasure/pain centers in the brain.  Their behavior is still largely instinctual but, unlike, say, an insect, the "instinct" has a pleasure enforcement, is not just a mechanical reflex.  The animal experiences its existence in a way different from that of a programmed machine.

This is to my mind a huge step; it means behavior can be much more flexible (you don't get lobsters following each other forever in a circle) but still programmed.  In effect the outcomes rather than the details of the behavior are what are inherited.  The word for this is sensate.  The animal experiences emotions.

We too are under such a system (although like all animals we also have some behaviors that are still reflexive).  What sensate existence allows though is the development of intelligence and greater and greater flexibility (the appearance, in other words, of consciousness and free will).