n. The state or quality of being sentient; possession of consciousness or sensory awareness.
the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
n. The quality or state of being sentient; esp., the quality or state of having sensation.
The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
n. Sentient character or state; the faculty of sense; feeling; consciousness.
n. Specifically, in psychology, presentation regarded as immediate experience, without reference to its significance for thought.
WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
n. the readiness to perceive sensations; elementary or undifferentiated consciousness
n. the faculty through which the external world is apprehended
n. state of elementary or undifferentiated consciousness
Word Usage
"The problem most often referred to is the hard problem of consciousness; i.e. how to explain sentience and qualia and their interaction with consciousness."