Sentience?

Tom_Aurum · Post by **Tom_Aurum** » 2003-05-19 01:04pm

So, I'm bored, and I'm wondering, what are your personal feelings on sentience? Where does it come from? What does it come from? Does it exist? Why does it exist? What are your theories, ladies and gentlemen?

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2003-05-19 01:26pm

Tom_Aurum wrote:So, I'm bored, and I'm wondering, what are your personal feelings on sentience? Where does it come from? What does it come from? Does it exist? Why does it exist? What are your theories, ladies and gentlemen?

Where does it come from? Complex interactions between the billions and billions of neurons in your head, each posessing roughly 20,000 interconnects. That's a lot of potential data representation.

What does it come from? See above.

Why does it exist? Because our ancestors developed increasingly complex brains, allowing the degree of sentience to rise.

Post by **haas mark** » 2003-05-19 01:30pm

How about a better question: How did the evolution of the brain and the ability to communicate come about? THeories on this should be interesting..

Drooling Iguana · Post by **Drooling Iguana** » 2003-05-19 02:09pm

"Sentient" is an arbitrary term we use to describe ourselves in order to justify our claims to be superior to animals. It's a line we've drawn just below human intelligence and just above the next smartest animals' to give us an excuse to consider ourselves seperate from them. It's really just a matter of degree.

Enricko · Post by **Enricko** » 2003-05-19 02:49pm

Don't mistake sapience for sentience! An organism is sentient if it's aware, can feel and respond to its perception.

Drooling Iguana · Post by **Drooling Iguana** » 2003-05-19 03:29pm

Enricko wrote:Don't mistake sapience for sentience! An organism is sentient if it's aware, can feel and respond to its perception.

Well, all organisms feel and respond to perception, and how do you measure "awareness"?

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2003-05-19 04:12pm

Drooling Iguana wrote:
Enricko wrote:Don't mistake sapience for sentience! An organism is sentient if it's aware, can feel and respond to its perception.
Well, all organisms feel and respond to perception, and how do you measure "awareness"?

How much it responds and how much it learns i think, also if it can predict when something's going to happen (see drooling at the sound of the bells experiment).

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-05-19 05:11pm

What distinguishes humans from animals is our ability to decide what we think about. Most animals, other then cetaceans, elephants, and apes, cant do this.

Tom_Aurum · Post by **Tom_Aurum** » 2003-05-19 05:36pm

Okay, so what makes us able to choose what we think about while other animals are unable to choose what they think about? What makes you so sure that they are unable to choose what they think about? And what makes you sure that every human is able to choose what they think about?

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-05-19 05:39pm

what makes us able to decide our thoughts is that we're aware that we're thinking and know what we're thinking. other animals except the higher intelligences display little ability to control their behaviour beyond instinctual processes, nor can they seemingly determine a consequence of their actions to the extent humans are. some animals can, but not all. and not all to the same degree.

Aeolus · Post by **Aeolus** » 2003-05-20 01:03am

kojikun wrote:what makes us able to decide our thoughts is that we're aware that we're thinking and know what we're thinking. other animals except the higher intelligences display little ability to control their behaviour beyond instinctual processes, nor can they seemingly determine a consequence of their actions to the extent humans are. some animals can, but not all. and not all to the same degree.

Humans have the gift of prometheus. Think about it..Other animals communicate, build "citys", practice agriculture and ranching, even fight wars, but as far as I know only man harnesses fire. Maybe the greeks had it right all along

Starscream · Post by **Starscream** » 2003-05-20 01:28am

Sentience is when an entity posseses the ability to make a choice that is not within it's instinct.

Tekore · Post by **Tekore** » 2003-05-22 07:38pm

Sentience is when an entity posseses the ability to make a choice that is not within it's instinct.

Instinct, (as I learned it) is what an organism is born knowing - although some animals seem to be born with more instincts than humans, most (if not all) still have the capacity to adopt ‘learned’ behaviors. There have been numerous conditioning experiments involving animals in which they were taught certain stimuli + appropriate response. I’ve also heard that some monkeys have been taught sign language, but I am unable to validate that particular issue.

I hope this helps, but I’m sorry if the info is irrelevant or unwanted.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-05-22 07:44pm

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/00/01/monkeys.html

They can do a bit more than just sign language it seems. Well and throw feces.

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