Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site sphinx.UChicago.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!bellcore!allegra!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!see1
From: see1@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (ellen keyne seebacher)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: What's a person?
Message-ID: <254@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 28-Mar-85 18:36:31 EST
Article-I.D.: sphinx.254
Posted: Thu Mar 28 18:36:31 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 5-Apr-85 07:26:35 EST
References: <1597@bmcg.UUCP> <233@tilt.FUN> <676@unmvax.UUCP> <240@tilt.FUN> <unmvax.691> <1426@dciem.UUCP> <785Re: What's a person?
Organization: U. Chicago - Computation Center
Lines: 22


     I think you're talking about intelligence, not sentience.  Dr. 
Jerre Levy, a psychobiologist, would point out that a jellyfish, and
other coelenterates, are *sentient* (i.e., aware, capable of "feeling 
or sensation as distinguished from perception and thought" [Webster's 
New Collegiate].  

     Something a bit higher up the scale (a lower vertebrate, say, or 
perhaps an octopus) would have "representational consciousness," the 
capacity to represent the world internally and to fear, as well as ex-
perience, pain.

     Exactly which species are "intelligent" is the difficult question;
there aren't any real dividing lines, only gradual steps up.  But the
word to distinguish porpoises from fish is not "sentience."

-- 
 ellen keyne seebacher               ...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!see1
 university of chicago        
   computation center            "...and to my Democratic precinct      
 (x9.xes@UChicago.Mailnet)              captain, I leave my vote."