No, though they are OFTEN confused. Sentience refers to awareness of surroundings, while sapience refers to abstract thought. The dividing line can be very thin and blurred (are apes sapient?), but most/all animals are sentient, while very few seem to be sapient.
Sentience is literally the ability to sense. On an ethical level, it’s usually equated with the ability to feel pain…so you need to be more careful with how you treat sentient beings, since they can suffer. Plants are able to react to their environment, but are generally not thought to feel pain in an ethically relevant way.
Sapience (a la Homo sapiens) is more about ability to think. If a sentient is aware of the surroundings, a sapient/sophont is aware of themselves as existing separately from the environment.
Many SF settings use sentience as D.V.D. just defined sapience. If there’s a good story to distract me from that mistake (or the opportunity for me to shoot a bunch of rakghouls in the ruins of Taris ^_^) , I’ll let it slide.
Authors that use sapience when they mean sapience get bonus points with me.
To me, language is however it’s used. Knowing Latin and a little Greek means I think sentience = thinking, sapience = wisdom. (Sentio means to feel as well as to think or understand, but of course ‘sententia’ means a thought, opinion, or just plain sentence. Sapio is to taste or understand, but sapiens is ‘wise’.) But these are English words not Latin ones, and the widespread use of “sentience” to mean something like “self-aware” means that’s a real meaning of the word.
Dictionaries were originally created for documenting the language as it stood, not as wellsprings of correctness.
Sapience essentially equates to wisdom, an abstract concept often favoured by unintelligent numpties with delusions of superiority.
In the contexts where the word “sapience” tends to be used, its requirements tend to be far less than the prerequisites for having “wisdom”… in so far as only experienced people get to be “wise”, but even small children tend to be identified as “sapient”.
Obviously I realised long ago that treating it like a Boolean… that one either IS or ISN’T sapient… is absurd. It is just another imaginary step in a gradient without visible ends.
Don’t want to go … no, no,
But my boss says, “Make it so!”
Gotta see Collodi’s sapient bots,
Ties my stomach up in knots!
So stark … so dark,
Old run-down amusement park!
[CHORUS:]
Well, we don’t know what dangers hide!
Why do we go to Illinois, to an old amusement ride?
It’s disturbing, it’s so twee!
We’re gonna go unwillingly,
All except for Unity!
Hear her sing now,
Like a spring, now,
See her bouncing up and down!
See, WhimsyCorp all started here,
The park that held the Little House …
What made Collodi disappear?
Some rumors say it was a big-eared mouse!
No scream, no shout,
Disney’s hit squad took him out! [repeat CHORUS]
…I wonder if the robots will live up to Nick’s expectations/memories.
Does sapient mean the same thing as sentient? I don’t think it does? Unless I am missing something or the word choice flew over my head.
No, though they are OFTEN confused. Sentience refers to awareness of surroundings, while sapience refers to abstract thought. The dividing line can be very thin and blurred (are apes sapient?), but most/all animals are sentient, while very few seem to be sapient.
Sentience is literally the ability to sense. On an ethical level, it’s usually equated with the ability to feel pain…so you need to be more careful with how you treat sentient beings, since they can suffer. Plants are able to react to their environment, but are generally not thought to feel pain in an ethically relevant way.
Sapience (a la Homo sapiens) is more about ability to think. If a sentient is aware of the surroundings, a sapient/sophont is aware of themselves as existing separately from the environment.
Many SF settings use sentience as D.V.D. just defined sapience. If there’s a good story to distract me from that mistake (or the opportunity for me to shoot a bunch of rakghouls in the ruins of Taris ^_^) , I’ll let it slide.
Authors that use sapience when they mean sapience get bonus points with me.
To me, language is however it’s used. Knowing Latin and a little Greek means I think sentience = thinking, sapience = wisdom. (Sentio means to feel as well as to think or understand, but of course ‘sententia’ means a thought, opinion, or just plain sentence. Sapio is to taste or understand, but sapiens is ‘wise’.) But these are English words not Latin ones, and the widespread use of “sentience” to mean something like “self-aware” means that’s a real meaning of the word.
Dictionaries were originally created for documenting the language as it stood, not as wellsprings of correctness.
To be fair, a sentient animatron would also be very impressive. xD
Sapience essentially equates to wisdom, an abstract concept often favoured by unintelligent numpties with delusions of superiority.
In the contexts where the word “sapience” tends to be used, its requirements tend to be far less than the prerequisites for having “wisdom”… in so far as only experienced people get to be “wise”, but even small children tend to be identified as “sapient”.
Obviously I realised long ago that treating it like a Boolean… that one either IS or ISN’T sapient… is absurd. It is just another imaginary step in a gradient without visible ends.
Twee. Heh, perfect.
Gotta start using that.
You are actually all wrong! Sentient is when Treebeard does your errands.
Do we have a pun jar in this forum? That, sir caused me pain. :p
+1 to you, sirrah!
(TUNE: “Magic Carpet Ride”, Steppenwolf)
Don’t want to go … no, no,
But my boss says, “Make it so!”
Gotta see Collodi’s sapient bots,
Ties my stomach up in knots!
So stark … so dark,
Old run-down amusement park!
[CHORUS:]
Well, we don’t know what dangers hide!
Why do we go to Illinois, to an old amusement ride?
It’s disturbing, it’s so twee!
We’re gonna go unwillingly,
All except for Unity!
Hear her sing now,
Like a spring, now,
See her bouncing up and down!
See, WhimsyCorp all started here,
The park that held the Little House …
What made Collodi disappear?
Some rumors say it was a big-eared mouse!
No scream, no shout,
Disney’s hit squad took him out!
[repeat CHORUS]
It’s true. There truly is nothing creepier than a run-down amusement park ride with an earworm of a kids’ song. Cf. “Freddy’s Song.”
Ah, now the significance of the name “Collodi” becomes clearer.
I don’t get it. What’s the significance?
As in the baby, the photo technique or the medical application?
As in, the writer who gave us Pinocchio – a sapient construct. (I presume.)
Speaking of run-down amusement parks, I watched Mystery Men again last night, it’s been quite a while since I last saw it. Coincidence?
Anyone else see the appropriateness of a trained psychologist calling an action “crazy”?
In the same vein, a man who uses therapy puppets does not get to make accusations of “twee”
There’s a HUGE difference between “insipid” and “twee”! Tip just doesn’t have the judgement to be allowed to make that distinction ^_^
I just noticed that the font in the window looks a lot like GODOT’s text
That’s quite coincidental, I’m sure. The name of the coffee shop is “Ground Control”.