Lou Gold wrote: ↑Thu Apr 29, 2021 3:29 amCan you explain the role of ipseity in sentience? Bernardo says that bacteria may be sentient. Does that mean they have a sense of self? Or, looking in the expanded direction, does a planet or a sun or galaxy or M@L or God have a sense of self? Can it all be instinctive? I get confused by this ipseity connection to sentience. Can you clarify?
I can try ... In the broadest sense, one can say it's tantamount to the premise that there's some quality it is like to be a unique sentient being, as an 'alter' of the one 'I' that looks out through all 'eyes', that renders it as discrete from other such beings ~ what BK refers to as a 'dissociated' state, however much one may not resonate with that term. So to take the example of the sparrow I mentioned elsewhere that was attracted by the apparency of another sparrow it perceived to be trapped behind the invisible barrier of a windowpane, whether as potential mate or intruder, clearly it feels some sense of being in relationship with one of its kind. So one presumes there is something unique it is like to identify as one of that kind ~ in this case 'sparrowness', with perhaps it even having a call that corresponds to that identification. Furthermore, one presumes that if there had been an apparent owl behind that glass, the sparrow would likely avoid it, as being other than sparrowness, and even a threat to sparrowness. However, it would seem there are degrees of ipseity, as there is clearly a difference when it comes to human sentient beings, in that with our sense of metacognitive egoic selfhood, one can also re-cognize that it's not another distinct human behind the glass, but actually a reflection of one's own self image.
So with regard to a forest being such a sentient being, in that there is something distinct it feels like to be a rainforest apart from a boreal forest, I suppose it is somehow conceivable. Still, there's the question of what criteria would one base this premise on, which would demonstrate that it isn't just a human projection upon it? In any case, I must confess that I don't envision a current collective ethos returning to that animistic mythos of a forest.