I don’t see, at the evolutionary-functional level, why human-type ‘consciousness’ (whatever that means) would be required for sentience (adaptive responsiveness to positive/negative reinforcers, i.e. pleasure/pain). Sentience seems much more foundational, operationalizable, testable, functional, and clear.
But then, 99% of philosophical writing about consciousness strikes me as wildly misguided, speculative, vague, and irrelevant.
Psychology has been studying ‘consciousness’ ever since the 1850s, and has made a lot of progress. Philosophy, not so much, IMHO.
I don’t see, at the evolutionary-functional level, why human-type ‘consciousness’ (whatever that means) would be required for sentience (adaptive responsiveness to positive/negative reinforcers, i.e. pleasure/pain). Sentience seems much more foundational, operationalizable, testable, functional, and clear.
But then, 99% of philosophical writing about consciousness strikes me as wildly misguided, speculative, vague, and irrelevant.
Psychology has been studying ‘consciousness’ ever since the 1850s, and has made a lot of progress. Philosophy, not so much, IMHO.