There would not seem to be, though that could cary according to the connotation assigned to each term, and whether we are using humanity as a baseline for measuring either of those things....
There's a pedantic answer: Were you conscious at 5 this morning? Were you sentient?
And a prettier one: Sentience is generally taken to mean 'undifferentiated' consciousness. The differentiation here is between self and everything else. Interestingly, some spiritual systems encourage a move from consciousness to sentience, and others encourage moving the other way.
I don't know if that's true. Sentience has to do with the senses, while consciousness doesn't necessarily deal with that--consciousness can refer to mental processes proper (including and especially metaprocesses).
Sentience CAN, and often DOES involve the senses, but self-awareness is not dependant upon them.. they are more like tools. So, by definition shouldnt the label be the same? ~Zeph the Psychonaut!
it seems to me that self-awareness requires a field of awareness to be in, and that field of awareness is consciousness - they co-exist (though I believe consciousness can exist without a direct awareness of self - e.g. pure experience without subject-object distinction).
In my class on JRR Tolkien we argued that orcs have consciousness but are not sentient. There are discussions on Star Trek whether Data is sentient although I think that's an easily conclusion, he obviously is in my mind!
I can see how something could be sentient and not conscious (sophiaserpentia's zombie example) but not quite how something could be conscious and not sentient. Why wouldn't orcs be considered sentient?
I take consciousness to be almost entirely a superset of sentience. I suppose it's possible to be conscious with 0 sensation, but I couldn't imagine it.
I think I confused the two terms I meant to say that orcs were considered in the class to be sentient but not conscious. I forget what the rationale presented in class was now and now that I think about it I can't think of a good reason other than to say Orc are like zombies in some way all stomach no brains. I was thinking of sentient as meaning "self aware" like there's a higher consciousness that is aware of itself as being unique. What makes a human being different from an animal? Isn't there a higher consciousness in human beings? So wouldn't you call that self awareness or sentience? But I guess I was wrong since now I see that sentience just means to be capable of feeling (on a purely physical level as in not in a coma).
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Date: 2004-02-11 10:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-12 12:12 am (UTC):)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-12 04:52 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-12 04:01 pm (UTC)There's a pedantic answer:
Were you conscious at 5 this morning? Were you sentient?
And a prettier one:
Sentience is generally taken to mean 'undifferentiated' consciousness. The differentiation here is between self and everything else. Interestingly, some spiritual systems encourage a move from consciousness to sentience, and others encourage moving the other way.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-12 01:10 am (UTC)~Zeph the Psychonaut~
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-12 04:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-12 05:00 am (UTC)So, by definition shouldnt the label be the same?
~Zeph the Psychonaut!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-12 05:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-12 06:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-12 12:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-12 02:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-12 04:03 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-12 08:15 pm (UTC)