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What Makes Something Sentient?

If you enjoy classical music. That's what makes you a sentient being. Failure to do this risks demotion from the human species.
 
lizzie said:
I tend to think it's more likely that sentience is awareness of "self" as opposed to others. It's the ability to sense, and apply characteristics to, or question the meaning of, sensory input.
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That's called consciousness. Being aware of your surroundings. Like a jelly fish, say.
 
DashingAmerican said:
Simple question. What makes something sentient? Is it simply consciousness or something more?
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I think, therefor I am. Sentience is the realization one exists and to ponder the implications therein.
 
The ability and desire to ask "why"?
 
MaggieD said:
The ability "to know" -- which is why I wonder about men.

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Aka intuition. A few men have it, but it seems to be primarily a gift of the fairer sex.
 
Dittohead not! said:
So, that's not conclusive. I guess we'll have to wait for Bman's better evidence.
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Don't worry I haven't forgotten, just busy..

And it's not like my jaw didn't drop when I first saw that study.. that's something around 100 years old.

I was pretty stoked by that, until I saw the difficulties, the timing of death, if the person is not still the measurements will jostle around.

I'm sure it could be that there is a small drop in the mass of a dying person, and the studies could be better replicated today. Though, I don't say that so much to critique the idea.

I will bring about a bunch of the papers that show reported "intelligence" in even single celled organisms. Now that I know that j won't just be met with some "screw that" type comment.
 
csbrown28 said:
Seems interesting that in this day and age, when religion feels so much pressure from new information, that this "experiment" hasn't already been carried out. Seems like a really easy thing to lend evidence to the existence of souls, yet no one seems to be eager to jump on it.

Now, I'm not claiming that that proves anything except that, ether no one has followed up on this experiment, telling me that they don't belive it's worth repeating, or they have tried and the results didn't come out the way they hoped.
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I'm not sure just how such an experiment could be designed, but the results would be interesting to say the least.
 
Originally Posted by csbrown28 View Post
Seems interesting that in this day and age, when religion feels so much pressure from new information, that this "experiment" hasn't already been carried out. Seems like a really easy thing to lend evidence to the existence of souls, yet no one seems to be eager to jump on it.

Now, I'm not claiming that that proves anything except that, ether no one has followed up on this experiment, telling me that they don't belive it's worth repeating, or they have tried and the results didn't come out the way they hoped.
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Dittohead not! said:
I'm not sure just how such an experiment could be designed, but the results would be interesting to say the least.
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Such experiments to weigh the soul have been carried out extensively. No reduction or gain in weight at the moment of death has ever been detected.

If we ever build an intelligent computer will it lose mass when you switch it off? Why ascribe a difference to the thinking of humans to that which will one day be done by artificial means?
 
Tim the plumber said:
Such experiments to weigh the soul have been carried out extensively. No reduction or gain in weight at the moment of death has ever been detected.

If we ever build an intelligent computer will it lose mass when you switch it off? Why ascribe a difference to the thinking of humans to that which will one day be done by artificial means?
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If the computer doesn't change its weight when the electricity leaves it, does that mean there is no electricity?
 
Tim the plumber said:
Such experiments to weigh the soul have been carried out extensively. No reduction or gain in weight at the moment of death has ever been detected.

If we ever build an intelligent computer will it lose mass when you switch it off? Why ascribe a difference to the thinking of humans to that which will one day be done by artificial means?
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Electromagnetic radiation is transmitted by photons, which are considered to be massless particles in most conditions.

However, per Wiki photons in supercomputers have a rest mass, so we really need comment from a professional physicist here. It might in principle be possible to say a supercomputer would weigh less when turned off, but I expect the means to obtain an experimental answer would be impossible because of the weight of all the photons in a turned-on computer would be too small to distinguish from a single speck of dust that might settle on the computer while it was being weighed.
 
Dittohead not! said:
If the computer doesn't change its weight when the electricity leaves it, does that mean there is no electricity?
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The weight changes, just not very much.

However, given the accuracy of scales, it could be postulated that they haven't been able to weigh the miniscule amounts of mass a soul make make up, assuming its made up of electromagnetic energy instead of something not yet discovered.
 
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USViking said:
Electromagnetic radiation is transmitted by photons, which are considered to be massless particles in most conditions.

However, per Wiki photons in supercomputers have a rest mass, so we really need comment from a professional physicist here. It might in principle be possible to say a supercomputer would weigh less when turned off, but I expect the means to obtain an experimental answer would be impossible because of the weight of all the photons in a turned-on computer would be too small to distinguish from a single speck of dust that might settle on the computer while it was being weighed.
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Electrical power in the wires of your house is not electromagnetic radiation. That is light, from very low wave lengths to very long wave lengths.
 
tacomancer said:
The weight changes, just not very much.

However, given the accuracy of scales, it could be postulated that they haven't been able to weigh the miniscule amounts of mass a soul make make up, assuming its made up of electromagnetic energy instead of something not yet discovered.
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Ummmm... good point.

I suppose the mass increase in you due to the increase in information which is your person, that is your mind, your memories and skills and personality and whatever, would no longer be there as the neural pathways decayed during death would vanish. Information is more order in the universe which is more energy so the loss of it should have some mass effect... darn small though.
 
Tim the plumber said:
Electrical power in the wires of your house is not electromagnetic radiation. That is light, from very low wave lengths to very long wave lengths.
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The electricity in our wires is 100% definitely, scientifically a phenomenon of the force of nature known as "electromagnetism". Light is another phenomenon, and magnetism yet another. All are transmitted by photons.
 
USViking said:
The electricity in our wires is 100% definitely, scientifically a phenomenon of the force of nature known as "electromagnetism". Light is another phenomenon, and magnetism yet another. All are transmitted by photons.
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Electricity is transmitted in wires through photons? you sure about this?
 
USViking said:
Yes. Google it.
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Science Guys | Deparment of Physics at Union University

Electric current (electricity) is a flow or movement of electrical charge. The electricity that is conducted through copper wires in your home consists of moving electrons
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now this is ta good definition of photons

What are Photons

To put it simply photons are the fundamental particle of light. They have a unique property in that they are both a particle and a wave. This is what allows photons unique properties like refraction and diffusion. However light particles are not quite the same as other elementary particles. They have interesting characteristics that are not commonly observed. First, as of right now physicists theorize that photons have no mass. They have some characteristics of particles like angular momentum but their frequency is independent of the influence of mass They also don’t carry a charge.
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now you get partial credit because photons are a form of electromagnetic radiation (see here: Electromagnetic Spectrum - Introduction ) and when electrons travel through a medium they emit this radiation, it is not the same thing as the transmission of the electrons themselves from one point to another. (see this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnet ) and the carrier of the electromagnetism consists of photons, but that is not the same thing as what is happening in the wire itself.
 
tacomancer said:
Science Guys | Deparment of Physics at Union University



now this is ta good definition of photons

What are Photons



now you get partial credit because photons are a form of electromagnetic radiation (see here: Electromagnetic Spectrum - Introduction ) and when electrons travel through a medium they emit this radiation, it is not the same thing as the transmission of the electrons themselves from one point to another. (see this: Electromagnet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) and the carrier of the electromagnetism consists of photons, but that is not the same thing as what is happening in the wire itself.
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The introductory sentence of the Wiki "Photon" article seems to assign the most fundamental possible characteristics to the behavior and influence of the photon:

A photon is an elementary particle, the quantum of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force...
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The Wiki "Gauge boson" article seems to support the expansive interpenetration above:

The Standard Model of particle physics recognizes three kinds of gauge bosons: photons, which carry the electromagnetic interaction [N.B. "interaction" and not just "radiation"]...
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However, according to the Wiki article on "Electric charge" seems to say that what we perhaps informally call "electricity" in power lines is a characteristic of the matter of the lines rather than of a proton-borne electromagnetic force:

Electric charge is the physical property of matter that causes it to experience a force when placed in an electromagnetic field.
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And I have not found any statement affirming that photons actually "transmit" electricity, although photons may be a cause of the transmission. Also, I have elsewhere seen a distinction made between electron and photon energy, so I am not confident that all I said about photons was correct.
 
USViking said:
The introductory sentence of the Wiki "Photon" article seems to assign the most fundamental possible characteristics to the behavior and influence of the photon:



The Wiki "Gauge boson" article seems to support the expansive interpenetration above:



However, according to the Wiki article on "Electric charge" seems to say that what we perhaps informally call "electricity" in power lines is a characteristic of the matter of the lines rather than of a proton-borne electromagnetic force:



And I have not found any statement affirming that photons actually "transmit" electricity, although photons may be a cause of the transmission. Also, I have elsewhere seen a distinction made between electron and photon energy, so I am not confident that all I said about photons was correct.
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I hope I am not wrong in thinking your original statement is that photons transmit electricity. What can happen though, in the case of solar power is that they can transmit energy in the form of photons when then does jumbly things with the electrons in an atom's shell, which can then free up electrons to travel down wires. But there is a conversion of energy that takes place.
 
Tim the plumber said:

No.

You have to be conscious at least so when you are asleep you don't count.
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But people have been known to come out of comas years later, without missing much of a beat, mentally anyways.
 
USViking said:
The electricity in our wires is 100% definitely, scientifically a phenomenon of the force of nature known as "electromagnetism". Light is another phenomenon, and magnetism yet another. All are transmitted by photons.
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Sorry, you are wrong.

Electricity in wires is about the movement of electrons. These are shared in a metal. They can move along the wire as a result of being induced to do so either by a difference in abundance of electrons (electrical potential or charge) or by a magnetic field.

Photons are when light is doing it's thing.
 
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