[whittingtonaaon]

I’m not talking about self harm. I’m talking about the experience of pain—which most everyone has had! These are different things.

[KerrAvon]

I'm not quite following your argument on pain. Ability to feel pain is not sentience.

[whittingtonaaon]

It is if you take “sentience” to mean “the ability to feel,” which is what my dictionary just told me. I think this category really is the most basic differentiating one. Higher level stuff like self awareness all depend on it. The most basic difference between a computer and a human (or even a dog…) is, in my opinion, the ability to feel.