The problem of qualia is exactly that... a serious philosophical problem. The only evidence for sentience we have is our own experience. We assume other minds e

The problem of qualia is exactly that... a serious philosophical problem. The only evidence for sentience we have is our own experience. We assume other minds exist, but we have no causal factors that can demonstrate it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia We live in a world of dualism mind and body, but this is typically unacceptable to most philosophers. Generally the problem breaks down to: Materialism -> Consciousness is probably an illusion. Idealism -> The material world is an illusion and/or consciousness is in everything regardless of material. Modern NN tech views -> Consciousness is a material-independent orchestra of neural networks Superstitions -> god(s) grants consciousness to specific beings and not others That said, I think it's plausible to come pretty close to figuring it all out if we have enough time and experimentation. E.g. we now have very good evidence that most mammals have similar experience to our own through better understanding of language acquisition and evolution. This wasn't always the case. We don't know what we don't know, and something out there may provide a serious breakthrough in building a model of philosophy of mind that is convincing.