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 and/or fiction:
“Current illusion is that science has abolished all natural laws.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“A predilection for genre fiction is symptomatic of a kind of arrested development.”
—Thomas M. Disch (b. 1940)