sentiency
Capacity for feeling
Sentiency is the capacity for subjective experience—the ability to feel sensations, perceive the world, and have conscious awareness.
The term appears most often in philosophical and ethical discussions about which beings deserve moral consideration: The sentiency of animals raises questions about how we treat them.
It overlaps with but differs from sapience, which emphasizes reasoning ability rather than felt experience.
State of perceiving reality
- self-awarenessInsight into one's psyche
- sapienceProfound intellectual discernment
- cognitionMental knowledge acquisition
- perceptionMental interpretation of stimuli
mindfulness · wakefulness · alertness · lucidity · introspection · subjective experience · qualia · awakening
State of sentient awareness
- mind-bodyMental-physical relationship
- dualismPhilosophy of opposed pairs
- physicalismAll is matter
- qualiaSubjective character of experiences
phenomenology · Chalmers · zombies · emergence · subjective · first-person · intentionality · mental causation
Complex psychological state
- affectProduce change upon
- pleasureHappy, satisfied feeling
- painBodily or emotional distress
- sufferingSustained experience of distress
joy · fear · happiness · grief · love · anger · bliss · anxiety
Moral claims for fauna
- welfareComfort and prosperity
- sufferingSustained experience of distress
- interestsWhat engages or benefits
- personhoodStatus as a person
dignity · consideration · speciesism · veganism · factory farming · cruelty · humane · compassion
Subjective experience in machines
- robot rightsMoral consideration for machines
- neural networksLayered computational learning systems
- syntheticProduced artificially, not natural
- computationalRelating to digital calculation
Turing · emergent · superintelligence · simulation · android
awareness
State of perceiving reality
- self-awarenessInsight into one's psyche
- sapienceProfound intellectual discernment
- cognitionMental knowledge acquisition
perception · mindfulness · wakefulness · alertness · lucidity · introspection · subjective experience · qualia · awakening · presence
consciousness
State of sentient awareness
- mind-bodyMental-physical relationship
- dualismPhilosophy of opposed pairs
- physicalismAll is matter
qualia · phenomenology · Chalmers · zombies · emergence · subjective · first-person · intentionality · mental causation
emotion
Complex psychological state
suffering · joy · fear · happiness · grief · love · anger · bliss · anxiety · mood
animal rights
Moral claims for fauna
- welfareComfort and prosperity
- sufferingSustained experience of distress
- interestsWhat engages or benefits
personhood · dignity · consideration · speciesism · veganism · factory farming · cruelty · humane · compassion · intrinsic value
AI consciousness
Subjective experience in machines
- robot rightsMoral consideration for machines
- neural networksLayered computational learning systems
- syntheticProduced artificially, not natural
Turing · computational · emergent · superintelligence · simulation · android
sentiencyinsentience
Absence of consciousness
unconsciousness · insensibility · unawareness · mindlessness · obliviousness
sentiencylifelessness
Quality of having no animation
inertness · deadness · materiality · thingness · mechanicalness
sentiencyautomaticity
Self-generating action capacity
mindlessness · unfeelingness · computation · reflexivity · stimulus-response
- sentient beingThing with awareness
- sentient machinesTechnology with awareness
- sentient AISoftware with subjective experience
- sentient androidThinking humanoid machine
sentient, sentience, sentients, insentience, sentiences, sentiencies