Post #3406853

To me this trivializes the word “sentience” to begin with. Which I do consider to be a reasonably meaningless word. Sentience requires a somewhat randomly defined definition–is sentience using tools? Crows and monkeys are sentient. Is sentience experiencing and expressing emotion/loved experience? My cat is sentient. Is sentience simply experiencing? Grass is sentient, it will respond predictably to external stimuli. Although grass also seems to communicate experiences, too. Freshly mowed lawn smell is grass “screaming in pain”, in the sense that it is the response to bodily harm, much like I imagine I’d scream in pain if my arm got taken off by a lawnmower. If we look at predictable responses to stimuli, I think one could make the argument that the planet itself is sentient, in that there are predictable geological and environmental results governments by the same physics that causes our brains to respond to stimuli. And then we’re just panpsychists. The generally accepted definition of sentience seems to be requiring the use of tools of a certain complexity, as well as communicating on what we would consider a normal human timescale, i.e. ain’t nobody gonna sit and listen if a tree takes a week to say hello. But this definition is pretty arbitrary, and can be easily misused. A bit like how “freedom” is somewhat arbitrary and means different contradictory things to different people. Your freedom to not get punched violates my freedom to punch you.