Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> what evidence do we have that humans are sentient, other than our own conscious observations

sentience and consciousness are the same thing...

if i believe i am conscious and so do you, then it's good enough for me. why does there need to be a light switch.

if there are 5 deer in the field and i have 1 bow and arrow, i need to focus my attention and track one deer only for 5 or 10 mins to hunt it - consciousness allow us to achieve this. it is a product of evolutionary process.



Yes, we also don't know what consciousness is.


consciousness is self directed awareness for accomplishing some specific task, like the deer example.


What do "self directed" and "awareness" mean here? This seems circular.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: