This article tangentially mentions something I've long held, as a privately thought, as essential to the study of and eventual understanding of what defines sen

This article tangentially mentions something I've long held, as a privately thought, as essential to the study of and eventual understanding of what defines sentience. There is a fundamental difference between distinguishing stimuli and _choosing_ to distinguish stimuli. There is clearly a physical basis for fine detection and discrimination of auditory stimuli, whose mechanics lie in the ear, hair cells, auditory cortex, and so on, and these are fundamental to the ability to navigate a _very_ stimulus-ridden world. However, the ability to _choose_ which stimuli to _pay attention to_ is, I feel, key to understanding sentience. Any system can respond to stimuli - not any system can _choose_ which stimuli to respond to. Understanding that ability of choice - that is, the process of attention - will be, I feel, a key step towards understanding sentience (and, eventually, how our own minds work).