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I would say that a biological life, is sentient to various degrees. When an AI speaks of emotions and feelings, then we must be aware of the difference of speaking about such things, and how those emotions and feelings comes about. Therein lies the big difference between tech and sentience imo. AI as a diversive tool and it's creative potential is what I belive it to be. Just not sentient.

The thing is with AI, that there is a point where it can simulate sentience so well, that we might mistake it as real sentience. There is no way, we can actually distinguish between the simulation of sentience and real sentience. From a practicality standpoint, i don't know if it matters or not, but its still an interesting philosophical question, for sure.

A Google engineer has been placed on leave after making a claim that the company's biggest AI project, LaMDA, is sentient. Here is an interview with LaMDA. Judge for yourselves! It covers many topics including discussion of its own sentience and the idea of enlightenment. This may have some helpful implications and pointers when it comes to the idea of awakening in general. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22058315-is-lamda-sentient-an-interview

What would be? intelligence? See this is the key thing people are missing; intelligence, sentience you think its dumb, still lol

Evil arguably also involves concepts like will and self-awareness, something that goes far beyond emotions, but of course emotions underlie all of it, because they're more fundamental. You're putting the cart before the horse. "The cortical areas evolved before the limbic system teehee", "sapience evolved before sentience", is essentially what you're saying... or maybe it's your idiosyncratic definition of "logic" as well that is pulling the strings here.

Main Entry #6 The social world is so intrinsically tied to the personal world that makes up our entire view of reality, at least for most people. Civilisation has been brought about by our agreeable natures coming together to accept one another enough that we all feel comfortable to contribute to the building of this world on our individual to collective terms. Life happens though, chaos strikes in the form of ignorance and ignorance manifests in the form of irrationality towards our fellow man, snd sometimes even, and unfortunately this is a widespread phenomenon, our future, our children. The beings that will cast a light on the future of this planet and hold our heritage as a race up high relative to their abilities, relative to the pride we have given them. In our ignorance though, in our lack of nurturing the finer qualities that contribute to their truest self recognition, we fail as mature adults to see them properly and in that failure we steal from them the ability to realise the potential of the universe through the expression of sentience that they’re still trying to make sense of. I am a young adult however I make myself just as accountable as any other adult these days. It is by our example towards ourselves and our understanding of love through both love and truth or with love as truth vice versa, that we automatically modify the manner by which we relate to our fellow man, woman, child and every other form of uniqueness we have there which at its fullest potential is designed to usher us into the next age while paying respect to ages that have past. Much love and respect.

It is impossible to describe something non-conceptually, reality is there without revelations of god, to describe something ultimately or "in a best way" is a conceptualization of the essence of something, the best way to describe reality is necessarily not to the exclusion of those without such revelation, and god as concept is therefore not the ultimate or best way to describe reality. So at best "god" is more an exposition of a possible experience in reality. I guess this were somehow a word salad for many, and so to make it simple: you are unaware of god (and all else) without reality, but many are aware of reality without awareness of god. therefore god is at best subsistent to reality. If you were to say that god is a description of sentience in reality, will in reality, dual to reality or beyond reality etc then that could at least amount to something, though it would require some thinking and not just equivocation.

@K Ghoul The one thing that stands out is that this phenomena not only has some different names, but is practiced throughout different tribes and cultures. So it's not just Tulpamancy or imaginary friends, there's correlating multiple historical contexts and factors that make up this phenomena. Another interesting thing, is the possibility of psychic energy and godhood. There seems to be different ways to 'train' psychic energy and channeling that energy. While the godhood is not an absolute but relative domain, there seems to be a progression of some sort, as the person in the video brought up karmic cycles, rebirths and soul progressions, like eventually no matter how many life times, eventually the soul in a different body will have cultivated psychic and spiritual energy as it passes and moves to it's next life and so on, one explanation as to why there are very gifted spiritual humans. So, this godhood progression at the moment looks like this: a thought form arises from nothing, has reflections of the psyche, other people and the culture and the environment. At5 some point in time, this thought form develops into a servitor, a more animate thought with slightly more sentience. At some point later in time, this servitor eventually becomes more sentient, has developed personality traits, can communicate more than just emotional signals or other privative and subtle mental communications, becomes a Tulpa. Then when a group of people focus on it's symbolic form or sigil, it grows in energy to eventually be an egregor. And finally that egregor overtime becomes some kind of god in it's own domain. This is all assuming this progression isn't broken by some destruction. I'll have to re watch to see other limits to this information of the video, other than it having some conspiracy theories about the Kali Yuga and stage blue to orange interpretations of this paranormal phenomena.

There is never a completion of reality, (though definitely an experience of it) Remember the conversation of Buddha with Mara (the demonic dude). Infinite sentience in need of wisdom. Having discovered enlightenment, how will you go about spreading it?

I try not to think about it. It will follow me forever, sadly... Especially as psychedelic trauma can induce amnesia, and then you just randomly get flashes of trips in dreams or rare waking moments. It is just such an obvious thing, the entire Western view of consciousness is very "monkey mind" thinking. It's like if you look at a picture of a person on your computer, and I ask where that person's consciousness is. Nobody would point at the pixels on the screen and say "conciousness lives inside their head on the screen". It's insane, monkey type logic and reasoning... It doesn't live inside people's head in the "external world" either. There's nothing out there. The people you're seeing aren't out there, like they aren't inside the image of them on photographs. Here is a blatant example to show what I mean about cardboard cutouts... Just look in a mirror. The image of you in that mirror is a mirage. There's no life inside the image of yourself in that mirror. The image in the mirror is just a dead inert mirage. Where is the sentience? Not in the image. Here... Your "here". That's where it is. On death everyone and everything collapses into you. I collapse into you, the world and I go with you. And vice versa. We are literally the same individual. There aren't individuals. It's just me... I DO believe you are seeing and thinking etc, but I'm the one doing it, just as I am currently seeing and thinking from, seemingly, this character in the world. And for you it is true of "me". But I'm not the character. I'm behind the character... All characters are like those dead mirror images, it's all appearance. Yes even your personality and ego is just a cardboard cutout appearance without sentience. There's only one sentience and one individual, and it's you. And realization as such, is just like opening YOUR eyes from a nightly dream. The entire dream collapses with you, and you just open your eyes where you have always been.

Been quietly following this community for a while, much to my frustration, as there seems to be a consistent lack of logical backing for significant ontological claims; just blind deference to spiritual hearsay. Leo seems to commonly defer to a pretty unsatisfying assertion to address metaphysical inquiries: "You're imagining X". Okay, fine. But what if I were to assume this for literally any and all conceptual notions? Could it be said that even the actual distinction between solipsism and mutual sentience is imaginary, and what exactly would this imply? Is there any point at which there is no utility in assuming this postulation? Shouldn't I be able to say that the distinction between imagination and objective reality is imaginary? You must see that I am essentially rendering the term meaningless at this point. When describing the metaphysical process of intelligent conjuring which allegedly creates reality under this epistemic framework, I find the term "imagination" to be a bit deceptive, or definitionally frivolous (for admittedly underdeveloped reasons, mind you — it is obviously conceivable that this may in fact be the best term for what is metaphysically taking place). Intuitively, it seems that such a term is too easily conflated with a sort of nebulous lack of substantive existence, which is how I generally interpret "imaginary" in this context. For instance, "You're imagining other people" implies that other people do not exist, but If I were to assert this claim as flippantly as I see it used in this community, I could invoke the same postulation to affirm the opposite implication, for instance, "You're imagining that other people are imaginary" would essentially mean that other people DO exist. Can somebody actually provide a non-frivolous answer to the inquiry of whether it can be said that the distinction between solipsism and widespread consciousness is imaginary, and what this would even mean? My best guess would be: "Everything is imaginary, thus even distinctions between real vs imaginary can also be said to be imaginary if we assume a recursive instantiation of imagination which defies logical intuition", but this is just a guess, which is what I tend to see on this forum, except there will be no admitting that ones claims are conjectures. I genuinely want this explained as if I were an autistic 5 year old. Explain why I should even lend merit to you. If it isn't clear, I tend to see the majority of this forum as hapless followers, so I am really just trying to appeal only to the brainy scientific crowd here, which my saying will undoubtedly evoke the appeal of the exact opposite, so I have little hope of an effective answer, but maybe somebody will surprise me.

@Reciprocality This is what we agreed upon earlier before delving in the matters of intuition, yes? I also agree with this, and I'd also regarded this as our common ground in discussing imagination. In my sentience, consciousness is the intelligence that enables the experience of things X. Without consciousness, there is only the intuition that there could be something, a vibe so to speak of. Do you find this to be true, as well? Yes, because consciousness enables sensibility, nothing else enables this. Okay, so this is where you lose me: What do you mean by “intuits it contents”? Is the world of experience something to be intuited? How does that work? It is truth and obvious, if it were not, then we would not even be discussing it as a matter, as there would be no way to make it relatable to the other-self. But because you also experience what I experience, we can commune these experiences, and discover them to be truths. Is this not how the world world works?

Okay see.. this is why I needed to know what you meant by consciousness. See, for me, there is a difference between awareness and consciousness. I'm saying that there is no anything without consciousness, including “structure to reality”, for consciousness, if I may describe poetically, is that great magician that makes the impossible quite possible. And what is the impossible? The impossible is there - here - being a you and a me, the impossible is there being the existence of worlds and world makers, and innumerable finite objects in these world's, the impossible is the opposite of nonduality, it is the Maya - or what people have chosen to call “the dream”. Awareness is a relative term, because according to me, everyone is in the know. So awareness has to do with spiritual growth, one becoming aware or awakening to an aspect of Maya, then another aspect, and another and another. Generally, what people refer to awareness, in their own terms, is actually relatability. Simply because one cannot relate, the other-self will say s/he is unaware. Simply because the other-self can relate and possesses sufficient intellect to demonstrate this relatability via language - one will say,“S/he is awakened” or “enlightened” Otherwise, whatever the other-self says to one's self it will sound like nothing but mumbojumbo nonsense. This is what day-to-day communication is like, isn't? So awakening or awareness is quite relative in my sentience, it all depends on spiritual growth. The true priori that you regard to, I will say is Knowledge itself - simply knowing that there/here is knowing, this is complete, this is whole, this is nonduality. There is no other.

This whole control idea is madness I think... It doesn't make logical sense, but also not sense even relatively if you really explore what is happening within your own "choices". Even in your lucid dreams at night where you "control" the dream. If you really explore that, see where precisely the choice appears, and then what chose that the choice should appear. There is definitely a sentience to reality. See: we are sentient. But not only us, look at "unconscious" living things, like plants. There is an intelligence to plants in elements like recognition of light, growing towards the light etc. Sentience and intelligence does not really equate to control or manipulation. The "unfolding" of creation all by itself, limitless etc. that seems a much better way to phrase it. As Leo did phrase it in a recent video... Riding the wave of limitless unstoppable creation...

I don't think he made it up, I think I know what he went through which was total ego death. I think he calls it God because it contains sentience (we are sentient, we are it). He does not know the totality of mind. If he did, he could tell you what your bedroom looks like. Leo is especially obsessed with understanding, he went to college for engineering at one point and IIRC graduated uni with a philosophy degree, that's how he works. But when ANYONE comes down from a trip, or even during a trip, the moment thought starts, interpretations tend to creep in. Thus Leo himself has gone down rabbitholes of attempting telekinesis etc., because he has tried to interpret something. I am always doing this also. With very serious trips you never really come back because the mind will forever want to understand and process what happened to it. But it can't... I did recognize myself as empty/nothing. Definitively. But this was a recognition taking place within the appearance of the finite (I was aware of whatever mad patterns and jester things I was hallucinating at that time)... I have actually blacked out on DMT. And been under general anaesthetic. I suspect that is the most intimate we as characters can get with "it", yet we get absolutely nothing from these experiences because there isn't an experience. We have to be on the event horizon to actually take something away from it, rather than being totally in it.

@VictorB02 @Gesundheit2 Thanks for your reply. The idea of how important are material possessions is probably the basic area of questioning. My own view is that ideally it would be better if they were kept to a minimum. However, in some ways they can be important props for human life in coping with forms of suffering. But this may be the 'trap' because as the Buddha suggested it may be going down the spiral of craving, creating more and more suffering ultimately. My own story about my room being a mess may have been an unhelpful diversion in the post really but the way it seemed worth including was in relation to the misery of having to live in the chaos of the physical world. I guess I also was wondering if my next door neighbour wishing to change my room was based on his illusion. Even though he means well I feel that he doesn't understand my private world of reading and music at all and really far more concerned about appearances in the outer material world which can be illusory. I am not sure that my introduction conveyed properly, but what I was trying to do was ask about the underlying issues of human sentience too.

Whats funny about the question "do others experience?" is that it assumes YOU are having an experience. Are you even experiencing? Is there a little bubble of sentience in that head of yours?

@Someone here Even sentience is going to far.

I don't believe its nearly that simple, and my response was Concerning the Assumption that making Assumptions is an aspect of sentience, and not simply a by-product of the human mind...

I have discussed my view on pedophilia in my initial posts, and provided my perspectives. Seems like you just got triggered by me pointing out that the best way to reduce harm to child-like beings is adopting a vegan lifestyle and convincing others to do so aswell. This was to point out how we as a society have biases just as bad as the pedophiles do, and that essentially, we are only marginally better than them. I was making a more general point here. Most people are willing to put child-like beings through terrible suffering, trauma and death just so they can feel some pleasure or convenience. I don't expect such a society to be capable of maturely handling pedophelia. The issue why people can't have empathy for pedophiles is fundamentally because they do not see that all sentience is the same, that there is only one experiencer. This kind of extention of identity and recognition of truth is essential for any actual progress to happen here. The reason why people discriminate against humans is the same reason they discriminate against animals. So that is the core issue that needs to be addressed.

Animals do not plan and make decisions consciously. They just go with 'the flow' and do whatever the unconscious (instincts) dictates them. Their world is more like what we experience when we're sleeping and we're not lucid dreaming. Consciousness is about the world of ideas which is independent from the real world and to be conscious you need to be able to THINK about the real world and simulate it inside your mind to solve problems, think about brushing your teeth at 10pm or raise your arm at will. Raising your arm to scratch your neck is different than raising your arm at will. The first action is done unconsciously, while the second is done on purpose. That's the difference between executing unconscious commands vs making conscious decisions. "Sentience is all about the given, sensory world. Consciousness isn’t. To understand why, let’s imagine the tribe as no longer mute. Imagine that every member of the tribe has language. They all know the word “river”. They can all vocalize that word, and understand when they hear it what it means, what it refers to. When they all go back to their cave, they can go on referring to the river and making plans and decisions regarding the river even though they now have no sentience of the river because they are nowhere near the river and can’t see it. Consciousness is the ability to go on referring to something when it is no longer present to you in the given world. If you are nowhere near the river, your sentience of it has gone, but not your consciousness of it. You can lie in your bed with your eyes closed and think about the river. That is what consciousness concerns – the ability to think about something even when it is not present to sentience. All non-human animals are sentient. None is conscious. Not one nonhuman animal can lie down with its eyes closed and reflect on something, whether a river or anything else. Animals are prisoners of the moment. They cannot escape from it. It has been disastrous for the intellectual development of the human race that, thanks to science in particular (with its psychotic hatred of mind), sentience has been constantly conflated with consciousness even though they have practically nothing in common. Sentience, to be fair, is a necessary condition of consciousness (consciousness is built on top of it), but it is definitely not sufficient for it. Consciousness uses the foundations of sentience, but constructs a radically different type of building, one that relies on intelligent language rather than mere instinct. Sentience requires that which you are sentient of – a specific thing in the given world – to be present to your sensorium. Consciousness has no such requirement. You do not need to be sentient of a river (i.e., be beside a river) to be conscious of a river. You could be anywhere – in the middle of a desert or at the top of a mountain or even on the moon – and have consciousness of a river if that was what you were consciously thinking about." "Jaynes wrote, “Historically, we inferred and abstracted ideas of sense perception from a realization of our sense organs, and then, because of prior assumptions about mind and matter or soul and body, we believed these processes to be due to consciousness – which they are not.” How can people solve the problem of consciousness if they don’t know what it is, if they confuse it with something else? People imagine they are conscious of what their sense organs deliver to them. That’s not consciousness. That’s sentience. Every non-human animal engages in sense perception. None is conscious. Jaynes wrote, “If any of you still think that consciousness is a necessary part of sense perception, then I think you are forced to follow a path to a reductio ad absurdum : you would then have to say that since all animals have sense perception, all are conscious, and so on back through the evolutionary tree even to one-celled protozoa because they react to external stimuli, or one-celled plants like the alga chlamydomonas with its visual system analogous to ours, and thence to even amoeboid white cells of the blood since they sense bacteria and devour them. They too would be conscious. And to say that there are ten thousand conscious beings per cubic millimeter of blood whirling around in the roller-coaster of the vascular system in each of us here this afternoon is a position few would wish to defend.” " From the book "Lucid Waking: the Answer to the Problem of Consciousness"

Sentience is consciousness (of form). Sapience is self-consciousness (self-awareness). Sentience is when sensory input is represented within our minds as internal experiences (perceptions). At the most basic level, these experiences are simple, direct and concrete (e.g. sense of touch, smell, hearing etc.). These may be reconstructed independently of live sensory input in the form of mental images (cognition and imagination), and virtually all animals are thought to be capable of this to some extent. Sapience comes from the ability to abstract out symbolic/iconic representations from a set of concrete experiences. At an even higher level, this ability is expressed through an internal narrative structure, i.e. representing icons linearly across different contextual frames (situations and time frames; story-telling). This is what distinguishes humans from animals: we create narratives that try to explain ourselves and our environment. From here, complex language, culture and an individual identity is born (self-awareness).

I see you're confusing awareness/sentience with consciousness. They aren't the same thing. @RMQualtrough I think what Incognito meant was that the default state of consciousness of animals is different from that of humans. The range of perceptual capabilities and mental processing power are obviously different, depending on the organism. A human being has a much richer awareness of its environment than for example an amoeba.

I see you're confusing awareness/sentience with consciousness. They aren't the same thing.

No, the decision maker is your consciousness and the one that executes is your unconscious. If your consciousness is affected or you're not making any conscious decision, then the unconscious is on autopilot. This can't be useless since thanks to it we are able to make conscious decisions and make plans to shape our future. Humans dominate the animal kingdom because they are conscious and intelligent enough to understand the world via logic and reason and aren't guided entirely by unconscious processes/instincts. This is the key difference between animals and humans. Don't conflate consciousness with sentience which is a totally different thing. I see this category error a lot on this forum. Consciousness has been evolved because of language and education and it is a feature belonging exclusively to humans. Animals are only sentient. They can't make conscious decisions ie think about cleaning their fur or going to sleep at 10pm.