Let's try a different approach

[green_amber]

..The Wikipaedia approach - definition by democracy..

[Poll #597131]

Comments

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

I suspect the issue is of the difference between sapience and sentience.

I think we can agree that cats are sentient. But I think it's harder to argue that they are sapient.

[damienw]

I dunno, they look at porn, seek out drugs, and try to deceive observers when they make a mistake. Good enough for me.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

What porn do your kitties look at?!

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

1981's The Kinky Coaches and the Pom Pom Pussycats?

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

OK I'll bite. What's the exact difference?

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

sapient
sentient

A cat is aware of itself, but is in itself unwise/lacking in self control - or as I often put it "they're a bunch of opsessive-compulsive self-centred neurotics, and we just have learnt how to trigger the their disorders in ways that are pleasing to us".

[madcatwoman.livejournal.com]

I know people like that, too...

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Er, both those link to the same place.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

I m ight buy that a pet cat is aware of itself, but is that inate or as a result of interacting with us so that, for example, they associate a sound with themselves (a name) that isn't associated with others?

[andrewducker]

I answered "yes" for flies, but I'm not 100% convinced.

I'd like to know whether they build an internal representation of the world and then plan things in it.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

How bout they just smell the jam?

Maybe Zotz knows..

[zotz]

I have no close friends who are flies, or obviously I'd be able to ask them.

[moosedevil.livejournal.com]

I aint sure about babies, but the toaster in Red Dwarf has consciousness!!

[drplokta]

This is a bit binary. It's like asking which items from the list have speed. Different things have different amounts of consciousness, from a beermat up to that paragon of consciousness, me. I don't think you can identify a magic point on the spectrum where something called consciousness comes into existence, any more than you can identify where speed comes into existence.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

A self-aware beer mat? It's science gone mad, I tell you...

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Actually there was a reason I picked beer mat

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4298344.stm

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

My inner metric for assessing whether something is conscious is to consider whether it would be meaningful for it to be unconscious. I can fairly readily imagine an anaesthetised fly, but I strongly suspect that a paramecium (say) just doesn't have the necessary wiring.

Would be a fun set of experiments for someone to do, mind.

[i-ate-my-crusts.livejournal.com]

Single-celled organisms have chemical memory, which you can demonstrate by experiment, but I think I'd only consider some single celled organisms to have consciousness. Single-celled covers everything from archaebacteria to amoeba, afterall.

My definition I'm not so sure of, but I think it involves memory -- taking an experience and changing future behaviour as a result.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Part of my definition is the understanding that others work like you do. That's why I selected me and other adultsw, but not babies. Some chimps manage this but not all, so I left them off as well.