What I'd say from my very mundane viewpoint is that "sentient," like "truth," may as well be a useful word. So this wine glass, much as I revere it and its contents, is made of inanimate materials, some once-lived, some never-lived. I'm going to stick my neck out and assert that the wine glass is not sentient in any sense of the word that renders the word useful. Likewise with the sun and intergalactic clouds, etc. Until I know that these phenomena contain anything other than inanimate material, I'm going to cling to the notion that they are probably not sentient in any sense of the word that renders the word a useful one. Sorry to be so boring and unspiritual. I just want some evidence, that's all. Not magical flights of wild imagination.
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