Consciousness and Sentience: "Cogito, ergo sum"?

Consciousness and Sentience: What are they? How do they differ? How can we recognize them in others? Can machines ever achieve either? Where does consciousness reside? Can consciousness be transferred? Does consciousness survive the death of the physical body? Come ponder these questions and others with us at Marzoni's in Mechanicsburg whilst enjoying scrumptious viands.
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Scientist says human consciousness comes from a higher dimension
Sentience

• Definition: The capacity to feel, perceive, or have subjective experiences, like pleasure, pain, fear, or thirst.
• Level: It is often considered the most basic form of consciousness.
• Example: A chicken feeling pleasure when petted is an example of sentience.

Consciousness

• Definition: A broader state of awareness that includes sentience but also involves higher-level cognitive abilities.
• Level: It is a more complex state that includes being aware of your own existence and the ability to think and reason.
• Example: A human reflecting on their own existence or a skilled pianist playing a song without conscious thought about every note demonstrates higher levels of consciousness, as explained on this Reddit thread.

Key distinctions

• Subjectivity: Both involve subjective experience, but sentience is limited to the capacity to feel sensations, while consciousness adds the layer of awareness and thought about those sensations.
• Hierarchy: Sentience is considered a component of consciousness; a being can be sentient without being fully conscious, but cannot be truly conscious without being sentient. For example, a being under anesthesia may still be sentient (e.g., respond to pain) but lacks full consciousness.
• Higher-level thought: Consciousness is distinguished by abilities like problem-solving, reasoning, and self-reflection, which are not part of sentience.

In philosophy and neuroscience, sentience refers to the capacity for raw, subjective sensory experience (feeling pleasure, pain, light, etc.), while consciousness is a broader, often more complex concept that can encompass sentience plus higher-order cognitive functions like self-awareness, reasoning, and reflective thought.
Key Distinctions

| Feature | Sentience | Consciousness |
| ------- | --------- | ------------- |
| Core Ability | The ability to feel, perceive, or have subjective experiences (qualia). | A broader state of being aware, which includes sentience, but also higher-level functions. |
| Scope | Often considered a foundational or "minimalistic" form of consciousness (sometimes called phenomenal consciousness). | An umbrella term covering various mental functions, including awareness, attention, memory, self-awareness, and volition. |
| Examples | An animal can feel pleasure or pain, even without complex self-awareness. | Humans can reflect on their own existence, think abstractly, and form complex beliefs. |
| Moral/Ethical | The capacity for suffering or pleasure often forms the basis for moral consideration and animal welfare concerns. | May involve the ability to understand ethics, social contracts, and long-term consequences. |

Different Perspectives

• Sentience as a component of consciousness: Many modern definitions view sentience as the basic "feeling" aspect of consciousness, which is then integrated with other cognitive processes to form the full human experience of consciousness.
• Sentience and consciousness as synonyms: In casual usage, the two terms are often used interchangeably to mean simply "being aware".
• Gradation: Most experts agree that both sentience and consciousness exist on a spectrum, with varying degrees of complexity across different species.

In essence, while all sentient beings are considered conscious to some degree (as they have some experience), not all aspects of consciousness require the subjective feeling component that defines sentience.