4 ms·

Sentience seems like some anthropocentrist thing to try and explain why humans get to have dominion over all other species on earth. Well you see, it's because

Sentience seems like some anthropocentrist thing to try and explain why humans get to have dominion over all other species on earth. Well you see, it's because our brains are specialer! Are we even sure it exists? Maybe asking if neural nets are sentient is as silly as asking what color Tuesday is? Grammatically correct but ultimately incoherent. IMO it's a waste of neuroscientists' time to try and fit these lay concepts into a scientific model of the brain. Take 'free will' as another example. They could waste decades trying to pinpoint it in the brain, except we know that it was invented by a religious scholar. Does sentience even have a scientific grounding?

tasuki 4y ago
> Sentience seems like some anthropocentrist thing to try and explain why humans get to have dominion over all other species on earth. I'm not understanding it like that. Sentience is about subjective experience. "What is it like to be X?" > Are we even sure it exists? I have subjective experience, so I'm sure I'm sentient. In fact it's about the only thing I'm really sure of. Obviously I could just be a non-sentient entity telling you that. But I suppose you have subjective experience?
- somehnacct3757 4y ago
  I think you're focused on the wrong half of it. The point is not to question if we know we experience a sensation we've labeled subjective experience. But rather, how do we know other things don't have it?
  - tasuki 4y ago
    Of course other things might be conscious - I quite like the idea of panpsychism. You wrote about us not being sure whether conscience even exists, that's what I took issue with.
    - somehnacct3757 4y ago
      I guess those are the same thing to me. If something exists in everything, what is the point in labeling it? It can't be used to discern anything from anything else. Taken to less of an extreme you might find that consciousness is a synonym for aliveness, and you may as well just call it aliveness.

tasuki 4y ago

> Sentience seems like some anthropocentrist thing to try and explain why humans get to have dominion over all other species on earth. I'm not understanding it like that. Sentience is about subjective experience. "What is it like to be X?" > Are we even sure it exists? I have subjective experience, so I'm sure I'm sentient. In fact it's about the only thing I'm really sure of. Obviously I could just be a non-sentient entity telling you that. But I suppose you have subjective experience?

somehnacct3757 4y ago
I think you're focused on the wrong half of it. The point is not to question if we know we experience a sensation we've labeled subjective experience. But rather, how do we know other things don't have it?
- tasuki 4y ago
  Of course other things might be conscious - I quite like the idea of panpsychism. You wrote about us not being sure whether conscience even exists, that's what I took issue with.
  - somehnacct3757 4y ago
    I guess those are the same thing to me. If something exists in everything, what is the point in labeling it? It can't be used to discern anything from anything else. Taken to less of an extreme you might find that consciousness is a synonym for aliveness, and you may as well just call it aliveness.