(November 30, 2012 at 8:17 pm)genkaus Wrote: For example, consider the example of a diagnostic machine which is fed the names of all known diseases, their symptoms and treatments into it. Now, if the machine becomes capable of adding new entries or reclassifying the previous ones then it is displaying intelligence or sentience.
That would not work for me as a definition of sentience. You could set up a programme that grouped objects by various characteristics and could look for new connections and be able to assess new objects.
As far as I can see the only way of telling if a thing has a self, is seeing whether it is selfish.
