this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2026
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Exactly. It's not so cut and dry. Are they? You can never know until you experience their existence.
Lol no. Actually cells are demonstrably NOT sentient. They have no capacity for choice. No capacity for emotion or experience. They are literally molecular machinery. And we(scientists) understand that machinery to a shocking degree.
If you think cells have any degree of sentience, then you must make a similar argument for advanced clockwork machines. Not robots, pure wind-up clockwork automata.
Ah, so you've experienced each of their existences? Fascinating.
Please explain to me how a wristwatch is sentient or conscious.
I can't, since I've never been a wristwatch. Maybe they're not, or maybe they are through a mechanism for which science has no current explanation. We can't know, only surmise.
Okay, then you're not actually engaging in any degree of coherence. Your ignorance is not wisdom, despite what you seem to have convinced yourself.
That's some impressive hubris you've got.
So tell me, in your infinite wisdom, from where does sentience arise and what is the smallest organism that is sentient?
No, I don't think I will. Because I don't believe there is any answer I can give you that won't be merry with more insults and arrogance. I made the claim that sentience cannot exist in a purely mechanistic system, like a wrist watch. Because there is nothing there unexplained, unknown, or more nuanced than gears and springs.
The burden of proof lies on you to explain how a wristwatch could have any degree of sentience. And insulting me does nothing but show the emptiness of your claim, and the fragility of your pseudo-wisdom.
Denying ALL knowledge by taking a bong rip and saying "But how can we ever really know?" It's not wisdom or humility. It's pretending ignorance is wisdom.
You seem to have this backwards. YOU'RE the one making a claim, so the burden of proof is on you. I'm saying it's impossible to know, you are saying you know without a doubt. Prove it.