this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2025
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I think the big dividing line between what many animals do and what cells or plants do is the ability to react in different ways by considering stimuli in conjunction with memory, and then the next big divide is metacognition. I feel like there should be concrete words for these categories. "Sentient" and "conscious" have pretty much lost meaning at this point, as demonstrated by this discussion's existence.
I will call them reactive awareness, decisive awareness, and reflective awareness in the absence of a better idea.
Cells are very diverse, though. Some can get over your first divide.
That's not a problem. The idea is to define practical categories along the spectrum of consciousness so that they can be discussed without having to re-define terms prior to every discussion. There's no reason any given organism should or shouldn't fall into a particular category except for its properties directly regarding that category.