More Consciousness?

I believe consciousness is not a disparate, identifiable thing that sits in a corner of the brain, but rather is an emergent property that arises spontaneously and automatically as a neural net becomes increasinsgly more complex.

It seems learned opinion today tends toward the view that every living animal has some kind of consciousness, even the most primitive ones, differing only in the level or "amount" of consciousness, which in turn depends on the level of complexity of its brain or neural organization -- which is why we humans count ourselves, with our large and complex brains, as the "most-minded" species, ceding second place to other big-brained species like chimpanzees, dolphins and killer whales (intelligent, but still safely incapable of building a civilization and rivaling or threatening us).

Which then brings up an interesting question: if, in the future, a species is encountered (perhaps extraterrestrial) whose neural organization/cerebral complexity is much greater than ours, would that mean that they are "more conscious", "have more mind" than we do? What would that even mean? I can sort of imagine being less conscious, or "having less mind" than a regular human being, but what would having more consciousness, "more mind" than humans do, be like? Is that even imaginable?

And since we take it for granted that we humans, the possessors of unquestionably the best mind known so far, can own and exploit other creatures with less mind, would that hypothetical species with superior, "bigger" mind, be entitled to own and exploit us in the same way?