# Rules for Sentient Conversation
Date: 2023-02-15

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### Rules for Sentient Conversation

1. Disagreement is based on solid evidence
2. If someone doesn’t understand something time is taken to explain
3. There are no conversation police — topics are not abruptly changed nor statements deflected unless they are agreed upon off limits by everyone

Sentient conversation is kind of the opposite of [truthiness](https://medium.com/@disrael/truthiness-explained-eb02d34c721a) based dialog. Instead of trying to uphold original programming, OP, the purpose is communication of [sentience enabling](https://medium.com/@disrael/are-humans-sentient-5060a9c2824) culture and memory.

However not all culture and memory is equally sentience enabling. Lists of facts or idle gossip, for instance, are unlikely to help challenge OP.

Aristotle is credited as saying knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom though “know thyself” was a [Delphic maxim](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphic_maxims) long before Aristotle. But Aristotle did [say](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1974/1974-h/1974-h.htm)

> Now any speech or action that manifests moral purpose of any kind will be expressive of character: the character will be good if the purpose is good. This rule is relative to each class. Even a woman may be good, and also a slave; though the woman may be said to be an inferior being, and the slave quite worthless. The second thing to aim at is propriety. There is a type of manly valour; but valour in a woman, or unscrupulous cleverness, is inappropriate.

There are hard and fast limits to how far a human will get knowing himself by himself — as a race we just don’t live long enough. So any form of sentience based on self awareness requires the help of others and the assistance of culture maintained by the many.

Sentient conversation can be a cultural exchange about the nature of OP and it’s limits. This is the sort of information that best informs a decision about whether to [follow original programming or not](https://medium.com/@disrael/the-search-for-sentient-life-on-earth-rules-and-regulations-57901b78dfaa).

Sentient conversation serves Plato’s [friendship of mutual becoming](https://bluelabyrinths.com/2021/06/27/platonic-friendship-in-the-epistles/):

> Therefore, in Plato’s view, the Platonic friendship should be such that it is a process of mutual self-development, that should always be underwritten with the aim to ameliorate oneself and each other.

so long as both parties are agreed on a goal of sentience — the ability to consciously choose to follow original programming or not.

Note that there is no Platonic friendship equivalent for the non-sentient inclined. You don’t need to mutually become anything to follow OP — merely keeping company will suffice.

However we don’t know much about how human original programming works. It’s possible that any culture of sufficient depth will begin to challenge it.

For instance the conversation might be about a sport or game but at a certain level of cultural depth on any topic, it’s possible that OP begins to get crowded out. IE devoting a large enough part of your brain to some topic that is not survival related is a form of control by itself.

Here we would have to know more about the nature of [neuroplasticity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity). Clearly some aspects of the human brain — hunger, sex drive, etc. are less easily rewired than others but nothing has been proven immutable.

From this point of view sentience is not a binary achievement but more of an overall score that underneath represents control of many different forms of OP. We see this beautifully depicted in Spiderman’s Doc Ock’s [“listen to me now”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj7uvAystUY) as he battles for control of his own mind against eight independently thinking parts.

![Image](https://disrael.github.io/blogs/assets/rules-for-sentient-conversation-645b8aa317.gif)

On the other hand it probable that only the emergent behavior coming from the interplay of different parts of OP plus culture, memories and diverse relationships (like Doc Ock’s with Spiderman) can find the gaps allowing sentience in the net evolution created.