(no subject)

[novapsyche]

Metaphysically, is there a sharp distinction between consciousness and sentience?

Comments

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

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....

[thoth.livejournal.com]

Why, yes. Yes there is.
:)

[techno-shaman.livejournal.com]

I think if there is, it would be purely semantical, and mostly label driven.
~Zeph the Psychonaut~

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

Could you maybe fill a girl in? :) *flutters metaphysical eyelashes*

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

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).

[techno-shaman.livejournal.com]

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!

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Some philosophers would say there is. For example, a "zombie" would be sentient but not conscious.

[liquidgrey.livejournal.com]

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).

[arjuna.livejournal.com]

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!

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

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?

Re:

[thoth.livejournal.com]

Ah, you and your eyelashes cheat.

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.

[thoth.livejournal.com]

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.

Re:

[arjuna.livejournal.com]

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).