Sentience: WTF is it?

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Sentience: WTF is it?
OP - March 17, 2014, 01:05 AM

Calling all philostofuckers!

Someone over at TalkRats was wondering if trees are sentient. To answer that you need a definition of sentience, and one that can be used to test the question scientifically. IOW, must make predictions, be falsifiable, and all the rest of the usual stuff.

Does philostofuckery have such a tame beastie stashed away somewhere? Can science borrow it?

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Sentience: WTF is it?
Reply #1 - March 17, 2014, 03:01 AM

Sentience is one of those words that requires a context to be useful. Any stand-alone definition would fall short where nuance is required.

When I say sentience, I generally mean a subclass of consciousness. Some kind of coherent aggregation of experience, or functional state of feeling, or simultaneity of sensory activity. Being aware of phenomena, as something. Synthesising the data. Being a thing not just affected (since inanimate objects can be affected), nor just reacting (since basic chemicals can have reactions), but a thing that is aware of being affected. Apprehending and processing it.

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Sentience: WTF is it?
Reply #2 - March 17, 2014, 03:08 AM

Yeah that was my basic understanding of the concept, but some definitions seemed to contradict that to some degree. Like just taking the basic Wiki stuff, they have "In modern Western philosophy, sentience is the ability to experience sensations (known in philosophy of mind as "qualia")."

Now experiencing "sensations" is a broad category, and not something that would necessarily require a mind. Several dictionary definitions seem to be equally vague, such as Miriam-Webster's "able to feel, see, hear, smell, or taste". Stuff like that is not what springs to mind when I hear the word "sentient".

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Sentience: WTF is it?
Reply #3 - March 17, 2014, 03:17 AM

This is why you don't hear scientists talking about sentience. It is not well defined and is generally just a common-sense colloquial term.

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