Very short version of the long argument.

[The Grand Nudger]

We don't need fire or steam engines. That's not what I was saying. All living organisms, including humans, metabolise their own energy from the food they ingest and the insolation of the Sun's radiation. No consciousness required.

That's on the biological level that we need. But the conscious needs which are produced by our "moods", thoughts, dreams are the difference. Here is where fire and engines differ as unique productions of humanity, other biological forms don't have to "cook" or "use a torch to see in the dark".

Neither do we.  We enjoy cooked meat and light in the dark.......but then so do dogs, so?

I don't even think they can make sense of "fast" and "slow", thus never needing an engine.

....I'm pretty sure a cheetah has to understand relative velocity, and theres simply no relationship between understanding fast and slow and "needing an engine". None. Nada. Bupkiss. That's not even a coherent thought in a vacuum.

I sometimes wonder what it is you -are- trying to say, when I grant the generous assumption that you aren't a complete nutball, and whatever you mean is entirely lost in translation.