2 ms·
Is there a test for sentience or self-awareness? Is it considered a binary property or can sentience or self-awareness be measured? I suspect it is not binary,
by mr_mitm 4y ago
Is there a test for sentience or self-awareness? Is it considered a binary property or can sentience or self-awareness be measured?
I suspect it is not binary, because I completely lack sentience while asleep or before a certain age, and it doesn't really feel like a phase transition when waking up. Rarely, there are phases where I feel half-sentient. Which immediately leads to the question of how it can be measured, in which units, and at what point we consider someone or something "sentient". As a complete layman, I'm interested in your insight on the matter.
- User23 4y ago> because I completely lack sentience while asleep or before a certain age All you can say is you don’t remember. Children who are too young to form reliable long term memories still form short term ones and are observably sentient from birth and by extrapolation before, albeit in a more limited fashion than adults. This is more than a quibble, because it’s been used to justify barbaric treatment of babies with the claimed justification that they either don’t sense pain or it doesn’t matter because they won’t remember.
- mr_mitm 4y agoSurely I haven't been conscious minutes after conception. So there has to be either a phase transition or a gradual increase of consciousness. It cannot be purely a matter of not remembering.