conscients

Conscients is a term used in philosophy and speculative discourse to denote beings that possess subjective experience and a level of self-aware cognition. It is often treated as the relevant class for discussions of consciousness, asking what it means for an entity to have experiences, desires, and sensations.

In this usage, conscients are distinguished from beings that perform complex computations without phenomenology. They are associated with phenomenological experience (what it feels like to see color, feel pain, or reflect on thoughts) and may include varying degrees of self-awareness. The term is not universally adopted and sits alongside more precise technical language such as phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness.

Ongoing debates focus on whether certain physical systems can be conscients, what criteria are necessary or sufficient, and how one can demonstrate or infer consciousness. Philosophical puzzles such as the hard problem of consciousness and the possibility of philosophical zombies complicate the criteria. The distinction between functional abilities and subjective experience remains central in discussions of conscients, artificial systems, and non-human animals.

Ethical and practical implications follow from how one classifies conscients. If a being has genuine experiences, some argue it warrants moral consideration and welfare protections, regardless of its origin. This has implications for debates about animal rights, animal cognition, and artificial intelligence.

See also: consciousness, sentience, qualia, phenomenology, artificial consciousness.