Sentience – the invention of consciousness

Wet weekend allowed for a read of the most recent book written by Nicholas Humphrey, Sentience - published 2022. In doing, I am re-igniting my readings on consciousness in light of all the claims around Artificial Intelligence. Firstly, I reviewed the books I had read on the topic in the past. The summaries on this blog include the following:: 

- Soul dust -  arguing for the existence of a soul, also by Nicholas Humphrey.

- A day in the life of the brain - what is consciousness made up of?

- The secret life of the mind - on the origins and composition of thought, identity and consciousness.

- The problem of the soul - explores the religious and neuroscience perspectives on the existence of a soul.

- Touching a nerve: the self as brain - neuroscience and its contribution to understanding how we think, be and are. 

I had a look in the local library and came across Nicholas Humphrey’s latest book. Here are notes taken as I worked through the many concepts introduced and discussed through the book.

The book has 24 short chapters, each covering or rationalising a topic or concept.

The first 1/3 of the book, provides a overview of Humphrey's initial work on understanding sensing. Hindsight provides connections with the work undertaking through the 1960s and 1970s and how various studies on how sight and other senses work, to present understandings of what makes sentience.

The overall argument is that sentience requires not only the ability to sense, but to sense with qualia. That is, to be able to appreciate the nuances of experiences being sensed, to enjoy or articulate (externally and internally) these, and to draw on these individualised reactions, to not only provide the grist for decision making etc. but also to attain joy, satisfaction, etc. He posits that vertebrates have sentience, but it is on a continuum with some birds/mammals possessing 'higher' sensate abilities and also the neural capabilities to experience qualia. Invertebrates, exampled by octupi, may have high levels of sensing and make autonomous decisions, but do not view the world in sufficient spectrum to display sentienness. 

The above takes up most of the rest of the book as each contribution to sentience is defined, explored, discussed and evaluated. In all, we could say that at this moment in time, AI may have 'sensing' but not sentience as it only draws from data to make decisions on what to output, but does not have the ability (as yet) to appreciate the glory or implications of what it pronounces. 

All in, a short read but with profound concepts, explained in clear language with examples most lay people will be able to connect with. Recommended reading for those interested in whether AI is currently sentient and the thresholds it has to meet to exhibit sentience.