Sentience

Sentience is the capacity to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively. Eighteenth-century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think (reason) from the ability to feel (sentience). In modern Western philosophy, sentience is the ability to experience sensations (known in philosophy of mind as "qualia"). In Eastern philosophy, sentience is a metaphysical quality of all things that requires respect and care. The concept is central to the philosophy of animal rights, because sentience is necessary for the ability to suffer, and thus is held to confer certain rights.

Philosophy and sentience

In the philosophy of consciousness, sentience can refer to the ability of any entity to have subjective perceptual experiences, or as some philosophers refer to them, "qualia". This is distinct from other aspects of the mind and consciousness, such as creativity, intelligence, sapience, self-awareness, and intentionality (the ability to have thoughts about something). Sentience is a minimalistic way of defining consciousness, which is otherwise commonly used to collectively describe sentience plus other characteristics of the mind.

Sentient (disambiguation)

Sentient may refer to:

Sentient (video game)

Sentient is a first-person adventure developed by Psygnosis and released on the PlayStation in 1997. It was also released for the PC the same year.

Gameplay

There has been a breakout of radiation sickness on Space Station Icarus, the player has been sent to investigate. After arriving at the station, it becomes apparent that radiation is only one of many problems; the Captain is dead and a power struggle has ensued. To make matters worse, Icarus is on a collision course with the Sun and nobody is able to correct the station's course. Sentient takes place in real-time, the player's actions in the early part of the game determine which path they will travel through later on. Which members of the crew are spoken to and what they are told plays a strong part in the plot's development. The player's performance through the game determines which of the nine endings they receive.

Development

The game was developed by Psygnosis' external Chester Studio over 1995-1997. The characters in the game were based on facial scans of staff at the studio. The Windows version supports 3D acceleration, but only using the Matrox Mystique and the Creative Labs 3D Blaster.