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Based on my experience as a sentient being, I believe sentience is a foundational requirement for understanding. The lack of a scientific or mathematical proof

Based on my experience as a sentient being, I believe sentience is a foundational requirement for understanding. The lack of a scientific or mathematical proof doesn't make both options correct, it's either one way or the other.

shkkmo 2y ago
> The lack of a scientific or mathematical proof doesn't make both options correct, it's either one way or the other. A plausible assumption is still an assumption. "Sentience" seems to be ubiquitous in the intelligent systems we've seen, but those have all been biological systems that evolved from common ancestry. While sentience does seem foundational to our sapience, I think it is unwise to take as given that this will hold true in non-biological systems. You say "it's either one way or the other", but in my experience the correct answer to such questions are often "it's complicated." Sentience may an intelligence accelerant that makes the development of sapient systems easier, but isn't actually a necessary property. It may be that sentience is required for sapience, but only if you restrict or stretch the definitions of those terms in specific ways. Is human culture/society sapient or sentient, either in whole or in parts? I can see an argument for saying that human culture as a whole is sapient with being sentient, depending on how you defines thoae terms.
pixl97 2y ago
>doesn't make both options correct, it's either one way or the other. This is kind of like saying the only way to fly is by flapping wings. Balloons, fixed wing aircraft, and rockets would disagree with you. The particular problem you're having in this thread is you're making very strong statements on things that have been neither proven or disproven and we don't have too much more to say than "there is something electrical and chemical occurring there in the brain, but who knows what exactly"

shkkmo 2y ago

> The lack of a scientific or mathematical proof doesn't make both options correct, it's either one way or the other. A plausible assumption is still an assumption. "Sentience" seems to be ubiquitous in the intelligent systems we've seen, but those have all been biological systems that evolved from common ancestry. While sentience does seem foundational to our sapience, I think it is unwise to take as given that this will hold true in non-biological systems. You say "it's either one way or the other", but in my experience the correct answer to such questions are often "it's complicated." Sentience may an intelligence accelerant that makes the development of sapient systems easier, but isn't actually a necessary property. It may be that sentience is required for sapience, but only if you restrict or stretch the definitions of those terms in specific ways. Is human culture/society sapient or sentient, either in whole or in parts? I can see an argument for saying that human culture as a whole is sapient with being sentient, depending on how you defines thoae terms.

pixl97 2y ago

>doesn't make both options correct, it's either one way or the other. This is kind of like saying the only way to fly is by flapping wings. Balloons, fixed wing aircraft, and rockets would disagree with you. The particular problem you're having in this thread is you're making very strong statements on things that have been neither proven or disproven and we don't have too much more to say than "there is something electrical and chemical occurring there in the brain, but who knows what exactly"