Science Fiction
In science fiction, an alien, android, robot, hologram, or computer described as sentient (properly sapient) is usually treated as a fully human character, with similar rights, qualities, and capabilities as any other character. Foremost among these properties is human level intelligence (see above), but sentient characters also typically display desire, will, consciousness, ethics, personality, insight, and many other human qualities. Sentience is being used in this context to describe an essential human property that brings all these other qualities with it. The words "self-awareness", and "consciousness" are used in similar ways in science fiction.
Read more about this topic: Sentience
Famous quotes containing the words science fiction, science and/or fiction:
“Everything is becoming science fiction. From the margins of an almost invisible literature has sprung the intact reality of the 20th century.”
—J.G. (James Graham)
“Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“It is with fiction as with religion: it should present another world, and yet one to which we feel the tie.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)