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Originally Posted by Botnst
I'm not sure what you mean so if I get it wrong, back me up.
Sentience may or may not have anything to do with life. I mean, we cannot test for sentience in non-corporeal presences but anecdotally it seems that djinn, angels, god(s), etc apparently have sentience but not a presence in the flesh. Also, we have spirits of the dead that haunt or pay unexpected visits. These manifestations do not lend themselves to scientific study so we are sort of left to shrug our shoulders and move along.
But then we have living creatures of all sorts that seem to have varying degrees of what we call sentience. Euglenoids respond to light and temperature -- external stimuli. So do most politicians if we believe news reports. But there usually appears to be some sort of qualitative difference between lower life forms and most politicians.
So I propose that there is a spectrum to sentience, from the simplest test of reaction to eternal stimuli on one end to the ability to score high on a Wexford IQ test.
Is there also a spectrum for life? Or is life binary?
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The Euglenoids are probably reacting due to instinct not sentient but just a guess as Im not a scientist.
I am sure there are going to be gray areas. Shivo was brain dead tot he best of our knowledge. No reaction to any out side stimuli. I am sure there are situations that are not as clear cut. When a fetus goes from a blob of cells to something I/you would consider 'alive' is I am sure up for debate as well.
I do not know if there is a spectrum for life. I think it's either you are or your not in terms of humans. The spectrum is where that line is. Perhaps it is a moving target and not fixed.
Does any of this make sense?