Sentient vs. Sapient is one of the most common word confusions in the English language. If someone says “sentient,” but the context appears to suggest “sapient,” they probably mean sapient.
The bit about that that’s bothering me is “sapient” is a term of art—it’s science fiction shorthand employed with a purpose (it denotes personhood for the reader, in a field where blatantly-nonhuman but unambiguously-personlike entities are common). It divides the field of hypothetical entities into two neat, clean categories: people no matter what their substrate, appearance, anatomy or drives, and everything from animals of every sort to plants and grains of sand.
It just seems like a weird way of dividing up the world, and more of a cultural artefact than anything; a marker on the map which corresponds to nothing in the territory.
Sentient vs. Sapient is one of the most common word confusions in the English language. If someone says “sentient,” but the context appears to suggest “sapient,” they probably mean sapient.
The bit about that that’s bothering me is “sapient” is a term of art—it’s science fiction shorthand employed with a purpose (it denotes personhood for the reader, in a field where blatantly-nonhuman but unambiguously-personlike entities are common). It divides the field of hypothetical entities into two neat, clean categories: people no matter what their substrate, appearance, anatomy or drives, and everything from animals of every sort to plants and grains of sand.
It just seems like a weird way of dividing up the world, and more of a cultural artefact than anything; a marker on the map which corresponds to nothing in the territory.