Becoming Sentient

The concept of being ‘sentient’ is being brought to light more, especially now, where sentience is one of the most defining characteristics of humans, and replicating sentience is now the final frontier of technology.

Humans are a dominant species for two reasons. Firstly, we are smart and are physically capable of having novel ideas and executing them. Throughout history, people have worked really hard to replicate, and even improve, this part of our existence. Industrial factories are much better at assembling things. Calculators are much better at computing things than us. And the leading reasoning models are a lot better at competitive math than (most of) us. 

And this is actually the second reason why humans have been dominant— our ability to actively think about how to be better. Being sentient is realizing that you have this level of control over outcomes in your life, as opposed to accepting your physical limitations and just ‘going with the flow.’ Drastic, positive change only happens when you become sentient, and realize that you exert a lot of power over your life. 

A great example of this is the concept of ‘studying,’ which I’ve honestly talked about quite a few times on this blog already (it's a good example for many things!). Lots of people just study continuously for things and black box the entire process after they start, allocating an evening to review for a test or an hour at the cafe for a chapter. But studying is a lot more complex than that. You need to check in on whether you’re making progress, and actively assess the gap between what you know and don’t know. I think this is a more ‘sentient’ approach to studying. If you look back and realize that you never actively thought about what you were learning, it's easy for a lot of time to go by with no progress.

But being completely ‘sentient’ while studying is also a problem. When I started interning last year, I didn’t value studying enough, because I’d constantly think about how much impact I was bringing and whether that studying was effective. Now, seeing interns this year spending weeks getting super comfortable with everything, I regret being too critical and not doing the same. 

Even when I grinded for olympiads, I look back and honestly wasn’t thinking about improving all that frequently, and I know the grind was fun but don’t remember that feeling completely. The times when I was actively thinking about improvement (being really ‘sentient’), I remember being really demotivated.

But there’s an alternate world where I look back, and have nothing to show for all the time I spent, no outcomes and little memory of actively grinding. And this would resemble a ‘mid-life crisis,’ where you weren’t sentient and spent a lot of time doing something you maybe didn’t care all that much about. Being too ‘sentient’ all the time means you’re perpetually in a ‘mid-life crisis’-esq state, which is definitely not optimal.

So like with all things in life, there’s a balance. We become less sentient when we become distracted, scrolling a lot or going out with friends or being consumed by work. On the other hand, being too sentient and not having things you fully believe in that interplay nicely with your values makes you useless and immobile. The ideal state is rationalizing why what you’re doing aligns with what you want, and then internalizing this. Being sentient isn’t strictly optimal, it's finding direction from that sentience that aligns with your values and doesn’t limit your goals. Without sentience you lack the former, and with too much you choke the latter.