That’s a tough one. Honestly, and I’m probably going to receive hate for this, but my gut isntinct would be that no, they are not sentient in the traditional sense of the word. If you harm them and they can’t remember it a moment later, are they really living? Or are they just an echo of the past?
This just shows that we have different definitions for sentience. I define sentience as the ability to be self aware and the ability to link senses of external stimuli to the self. Your definition involves short term memory and weight adjustment as well.
However, there is no consensus in the definition of sentience yet for a variety of reasons. Hence, none of our definitions are “wrong”. At least not yet.
That’s a tough one. Honestly, and I’m probably going to receive hate for this, but my gut isntinct would be that no, they are not sentient in the traditional sense of the word. If you harm them and they can’t remember it a moment later, are they really living? Or are they just an echo of the past?
This just shows that we have different definitions for sentience. I define sentience as the ability to be self aware and the ability to link senses of external stimuli to the self. Your definition involves short term memory and weight adjustment as well.
However, there is no consensus in the definition of sentience yet for a variety of reasons. Hence, none of our definitions are “wrong”. At least not yet.