I think that this question belongs in this category, not in science, because my question is what are the ways of becoming sentient?
Apes, like most of the mammals, became at least smart by some sort of social structure: chimpanzees have some sort of complex society, wolves have packs, elephants have packs, etc., meanwhile crows don’t have that much of the social structure, but have some wierd relationship with wolves (they hunt together, sometimes even play with eachoter (!)), but some octupuses are pretty social, but some are just loners, so it seems that you don’t always need social structure to become sentient (I am not talking about continuing as civilization), so what are the requirements?
what do you mean? they’re quite social as far as i know
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They live in big groups of hundreds obly for autumn and winter to roost, aside from that, many of them live only in small families (maybe I am wrong)
Do you mean sapient? Any organism with a nervous system is sentient. Common misconception I thought I would point out
Oooooooh, ok, now I get misunderstandings, but I don’t think that every creature with nervous system is sentient, because sentiece is about having feelings, and also niether “sentience” nor “sapience” is binary, so I mean becoming somewhat thoughtfull (which awakeing stage is about anyways)
setience is not about having feelings, but about perception of your enviroment
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But isn’t feeling are all about pereception of reality? Either way we can’t strictly say that some animals have some abstract willpower of understanding surroundings or don’t, it is all about smooth transition between stuped sworm to thinking animal and which requirements animals have to continue this progression.
feeling is about emotions, sensing is about perception of reality
I can recomned some viedo that can explane partly about sentient:
that can explane parlt about sentient and intelligence over all
but in espect of sentient, are complex even in standart of real life filed.
Kurzgesagt is one of the best channels that I know, but following video talks about intelligence itself, not cause of intalligence in living organisms, which awakening stage is about
Does it really matter at this point? We can both say different explanations of terms and both think that we are right, but we both understand the main idea behind statment, and that is what really matters in biology because our terms are often not full and can describe all oof the picture
first, pls dont double post if not needed. u can edit the [post
secondly, sentient are just a set of tools and feels to survivle, nothing more.
after all, he build to survivle - collect info about the enveramnt and anayze them - if its food, save or mate.
after all, look on the spounge and flat worm - sponge dont have any nero-system, but they still have some mechanic to triger to changes. flat worm have a head and they have some eyes call osalos that can detact change in the amount of light.
feeling are the Outcome and response to the information received - Fear is presumed to be the first to come: you see a predator or someone dangerous, so running away from him or hiding increases your chances of surviving and passing this information on to offspring.
Such a thing takes a long time, and it is very much related to one thing - food:
Feel free to look at this topic about early norishmant why I’m talking.
But when it comes to understanding the environment, this is something that is actually divided into 3 parts:
- A way to absorb info
- A way to filter and decipher the input
- Response as a result of decoding and the info resive
It sounds like a computer, but it’s what’s really going on. How it happens There are a variety of ways - chemical absorption for a biochemical reaction within the cells themselves (as happens with sponges) or even for the state of flow in the ocean.
It’s just a matter of understanding and action. After all, it’s one of the 7 features of life
Emotions and social traits also depend on food: a schooling of fish is a way of defending against predators and also improves swimming rather than individually, but a mechanism has developed that encourages such a thing.
Something more intimate like a pack of wolves or even sheep or triceratops evolved mechanisms that allow them to identify another friend not to attack him just and even acquaintances like birds even evolved behaviors that allow them to think and differentiate certain traits and use them accordingly (as in the case of the cuckoo, identify which eggs belong to which bird And cast there).
Such traits are the result of coincidences of needing certain constructions and building into them. This is how consciousness and intelligence developed in such a case:
The one that is able to bring and respond appropriately to the conditions in the environment:
A mad fear of a friend who wants to protect you but as a friend to reproduce (it sounds better in the head) has led to ways to solve problems and understand what is going on in the environment.
This is sentient
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I understand basis of evolution, so may key point at the start of the thread is that it seemed at the surface that
complex intelegence comes from big social groups, after all you don’t need being very smart and having sophisticated understanding of surroundings if your goal is to reproduce, because big brains requires big need for energy and doesn’t really worth it if you are alone, but living in big group helps you survive and if you can help others of your species, then everybody wins, and this helping system requires at least some social interactions, which requier intelligence, you said it and I said it too.
But if we watch crows and octopuses we can see that it is not always true: somehow being smart and living alone helps octopuses in the long run more than just relying on instincts, so, again, my question is not what is intelligence, because we don’t have concrete answer, as in most of biology but rather what creatures in real live and in Thrive need to start awakening process.
The issue is that the difference between sentience and sapience is not a hard line. I understand that within Thrive there will most likely be a hard line,but what it must be is debatable.
A few characteristics i would consider hinting to sapience: creativity, consciousness[1] and tool-use. However, spiders, pigs, orangutans, and other animals exhibit a few, if not all of these characteristics. Therefore, the only real factor for humans that sets us apart from the rest that i know of would be language.
One issue with using language as a deciding point is mostly based around its origin. It is unknown whether we spontaneously acquired language at some point, or if it somehow slowly became more complex, becoming what we might consider language today. If the latter, then the issue of not having a hard line appears. And if the former is true, then we would need to know what level of intelligence spontaneously forms language, which as far as i know, we dont know.
Another issue with language is less scientific. I wonder if language is really necessary for very intelligent beings. For example, if i was smart enough, i could watch a watchmaker make a watch, and learn how to make one without ever needing to communicate.[2]
Correct me if i made mistakes, and since i didnt provide a solution, i look forward to future discussion.
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Who teached the watchmaker how to make the watch to begin with? Plus, you could learn how to make a watch, but that wouldn’t necessarily mean that you know how a watch works.
and where will that go? without language, how will you communicate things like math? if there is no math, then how will you get to space?
Also, another problem with language as a starting point is what to consider as a language. For example many animals have at least some sort of communication using sounds or color or even plants have smells as a signal of danger. I understand that we need some characteristics to dividing the smartest animals apart from anything else, especially for Thrive, but I think that there is simply no universal rule so that say something like: “You are now the first examples of sentiece, your parents and grandparents were just stupid animals, but you are self-aware smart animal”, but I think for computer game, thoughtful language is pretty good starting point
That is impossible since its a gradient
Also, sapience, not setience.
There has to be a cutoff though does there not? It can be a gradient and also be that after one generation that one new member would qualify to be called sapient/sentient/whatever
Otherwise you could never achieve those because you would always just cut to beeing sentient when you fullfill the conditions
I literally said that you can not say that.
Becoming sentient or sapient or anything at biology is a gradient because it is all just random mutations at first and at second there is no universal evolution rulebook that says what to consider as a sentience or what to consider as an eye, because everything is always changing and there is no end goal or end point, so we make inconsistent terms like “gender” or “fish” that do not intersect with reality at most point, so really any heated argues about defenitions of terms mean that terms are stupid or to hard or invalid