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 teen
Yeee Haaww
Registered: 02/13/04
Posts: 242
Last seen: 2 years, 6 months
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 Sentient Beings
#3142531 - 09/16/04 03:53 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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I've been wondering about the idea of sentience, and well the first thing I tried to do was find a list of sentient species, and that wasn't possible :/
Basically I am wondering about stuff like whether all human beings have sentience. I certainly don't remember most of my infancy, for example, maybe *I* wasn't around to see that?
And well some of the drooling vegetables I see getting wheeled around shopping malls don't seem like they could behave to achieve survival, let alone avoidance of suffering...
So yeah two main things I have been thinking about
- Are people born with conciousness or are they born as automatons that acquire sentience later
- Is it possible that some humans are not sentient
What happens if you clone someone...
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Don't give me that load of bunk~!
Edited by teen (09/16/04 03:57 AM)
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Gomp
¡(Bound to·(o))be free!
 
Registered: 09/11/04
Posts: 9,103
Loc: I re·side [primarily] in ...
Last seen: 10 hours, 28 minutes
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 Re: Sentient Beings [Re: teen]
#3142638 - 09/16/04 06:30 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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If it is knowing and perceiving; having awareness of surroundings and sensations and thoughts
i dont know if i dont know. am i still Sentient Being?
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Disclaimer!?
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DieCommie
Ally
Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 5,949
Loc: The Union
Last seen: 3 hours, 34 minutes
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Re: Sentient Beings [Re: teen]
#3142715 - 09/16/04 07:48 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Whatever the case may be, a clone would be no different than a regular person. At least as regular as the DNA donor is 
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Behold yon miserable creature. That Point is a Being like ourselves, but confined to the non-dimensional Gulf. He is himself his own World, his own Universe; of any other than himself he can form no conception; he knows not Length, nor Breadth, nor Height, for he has had no experience of them; he has no cognizance even of the number Two; nor has he a thought of Plurality; for he is himself his One and All, being really Nothing. Yet mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn his lesson, that to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy.
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gnrm23
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 08/29/99
Posts: 6,302
Loc: n. e. OH, USSA
Last seen: 10 days, 11 hours
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MU! (tr. = "not!") [Re: teen]
#3142724 - 09/16/04 07:57 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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in all seriousness, a monk asked joshu: "does a dog posess buddha-nature?"
joshu turned to the monk & shouted "Mu!"
~
and who is watching?
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old enough to know better
not old enough to care
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 redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 9,831
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Sentience [Re: teen]
#3142985 - 09/16/04 09:59 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Sentience could just be subject to sensation with feelings (i.e. pleasure and pain or neutral) including all animals and many plants.
but it could mean conditionable by feelings.(i.e.subject to pleasure pain and indifference the being will build memories) which would narrow it down a bit.
I think you would then be able to project sentience on to most of the creatures now living on this planet that can learn.
but if you add "capable of transcendence or moral learning" you will restrict the list to humans - some mammals, some birds, & maybe a lizard or two and possibly a carp like fish.
all humans have the required potential even when severely mentally handicapped, and clones would have it equally.
the weird question comes when androids are built if they learn and confront moral dilemmas in face of pleasure and pain through which they have learned their characters. will they be transcendent and morally ascendent as well as conditionable?
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Moonshoe
JoyfullRebellion
Registered: 05/28/04
Posts: 3,712
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 3 months, 26 days
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the way i understand it sentience is awareness of your own existance. In my understanding all organic life meets that requirement, the problem is people are totally incapable (generally) of realizing that their particual form of sentience is not the only form.
For me to hear that my cats for example are not sentient (if im right in saying sentience means awareness of self) is ridiculous, he obviously is aware of himself in every way i am, more or less
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teen
Yeee Haaww
Registered: 02/13/04
Posts: 242
Last seen: 2 years, 6 months
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Re: Sentience [Re: Moonshoe]
#3144714 - 09/16/04 05:12 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
sentience is awareness of your own existance. In my understanding all organic life meets that requirement
I find that to be ludicrous. I understand only a limited number of organisms are self aware. Cats would be self aware, the fuzzy green things growing in my canning jars probably wouldn't be...
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Don't give me that load of bunk~!
Edited by teen (09/16/04 05:15 PM)
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Muppet
Nomadic Jester
Registered: 08/14/02
Posts: 22,703
Loc: (523) 327-2836
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Re: Sentience [Re: teen]
#3144876 - 09/16/04 06:02 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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you'd think that wouldn't you
..........
Thus Spake Muppet
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Moonshoe
JoyfullRebellion
Registered: 05/28/04
Posts: 3,712
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 3 months, 26 days
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Re: Sentience [Re: Muppet]
#3144890 - 09/16/04 06:05 PM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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"the fuzzy green things growing in my canning jars probably wouldn't be... "
you may be right, in fact you probably are. I have the vague notion that A. anything that recognizes its own biological needs (homeostasis requirements) is at least on that level aware that their is an IT, a self that needs those requirements to be met.
And B. the forms of conciousness are so diverse and alien to us in concept that we would never be able to know what degree of sentience something has. I mean, if i believe that this human body i am is capable of understanding transcendent, cosmic knowledge, than its not that hard to believe mold could at least be self aware.
But again this is pure speculation and not even well developed at that. This is not something ive put much thought into
But as for any mammalian animal, or fish, basically anything with a spine, i think sentience exists in.
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Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 9,844
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: Sentient Beings [Re: teen]
#3146576 - 09/17/04 12:23 AM (3 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
I certainly don't remember most of my infancy, for example, maybe *I* wasn't around to see that?
Sentience appears to me to be an emergent property of the brain. It seems to require not only the physical constructs of the brain but also the stimulus (nurture?) of existing outside the womb. But who knows for sure.
There is even evidence that it may have its underpinnings in the realm of quantum mechanics, or even more weirdly, the realm of sub-Planck Scale physics:
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat...ec49c4c8fcb9607
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Wanna hear something depressing? One out of three Shroomerites wants to lock me in a government cage for using a substance they don't like.
Hard to believe, right? Read it for yourself:
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/7874721#Post7874721
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