Sapience

Sapience is generally regarded as one of the most profound, mysterious, and miraculous phenomena in the known universe. The ability to go beyond merely existing in the cosmos and attempting to understand the cosmos —and one's existence within it— is a rare and inestimably valuable trait shared by a tiny handful of species amid the vastness. These species, of which there are currently ten known, are collectively called sophonts.
The exact nature, origins, and workings of sapience are poorly understood, but modern scholars are steadily progressing toward a comprehensive theory of the sophont mind. The study of sapience somewhat blurs the line between science and philosophy, generating a new academic field called noetics. Noeticists tend to categorize sophonts into a multi-dimensional classification system based on their baseline thought patterns.

Contents

What is a Sophont?
> Evolution of Sapience
Sentience Classifications
> Sentience Types

• Focal Sentience
• Semifocal Sentience
• Nonfocal Sentience
• Hybrid Sentience

Sociality Classifications
> Sociality Types

• Collective Sapience
• Social Sapience
• Centric Sapience
• Asocial Sapience
• Singular Sapience

What Is A Sophont?

Sophont is the generally accepted term for a being who demonstrates an intellect with the core characteristics of sapience: not just the existence of a concept of the self, but an active attempt to understand it. Most noeticists agree that the threshold of sapience is the capacity for metacognition - "thinking about thinking." The current consensus of noetics describes the sophont mind as the interplay of five types of thought patterns: sentience, emotion, intelligence, consciousness, and sapience.

Sentience is an entity's awareness of the environment through stimulus processing.

Emotion is an entity's instinctive mental responses to the sensations of sentience created by stimulus processing.

Intelligence is an entity's application of experience, problem-solving, and higher-order thought to the environment as interpreted by sentience and emotion.

Consciousness is an entity's awareness of itself as a holistic entity: the collation of sentience, emotion, and intelligence into an internal subjective reality.

Sapience is the ability of an entity to abstractly conceptualize these other thought processes and apply any of them to each other at will in an attempt to understand and master its internal subjective reality.

Scientific Disciplines

Noetics, sophontology, psychology, and neurology are all specific and differentiated fields of study. All four of these fields have a fair amount of overlap, but they focus on different aspects of the thinking being.

• Noetics is the scientific study of sapience itself, its various permutations, the structures that produce it, and how it evolves.
• Sophontology is the study of sophonts themselves, including their specific evolutionary histories, social behaviors, and cultural development (supplanting the human-centric term "anthropology" in the post-contact age).
• Psychology is the study of the mind on a group or individual level, the behaviors enacted by people and nonsapient organisms, and (in the medical context) how to shape that behavior.
• Neurology is the study of the specific biological (or cybernetic) structures that make up the nervous system and brain (if present) of an organism.

Evolution of Sapience

While life strongly trends toward complexity in virtually all respects, including cognition, it is vitally important to remember that sapience is not the "end state" or "goal" of evolution. Evolution is not a conscious entity; it is simply the word we use to describe the tendency of organisms with advantageous traits to survive and pass on those traits to a new generation. Sapience, therefore, is only one possible adaptation to the challenges of life, and it tends to arise only under specific circumstances.
Sapience is not the same for every sophont. Each species and genus of sophont, while exhibiting the five core thought patterns, exhibits these traits in varying ways. Tool use and technology, while largely ubiquitous among sophonts, are not universal requirements nor defining characteristics of sapience or intelligence in and of themselves, nor are civilization or even society, as exemplified in the pluuniima. However, there are a few common trends in sophont evolution: high metabolism, dimensional awareness, and social behaviors.

Metabolism

A dense, complex, and very active nervous system (i.e. brain) is generally advantageous but also very metabolically expensive, and organisms that gain such adaptations may not always be the most fit for their niches. One of the few firm, universal prerequisites for the evolution of sapience is a high-calorie diet, to power the metabolic demands of the advanced nervous system. This is not the cause of sapience, and many organisms evolve to spend their caloric intake on other adaptations, but those that divert the energy to their nervous systems are taking the first step on the fraught evolutionary path to sapience.

Dimensional Processing

Sapience seems to arise in organisms when the nervous system is preadapted for complex thought in a certain way. Though social behaviors do greatly assist the process, the common theme across all known sophont species is something which all of them seem to take for granted: a neural structure evolved to comprehend dimensional complexity. Acute spatial and temporal awareness is a vital adaptation for a wide variety of ecological niches, most notably in predators. Complex environments where judging distance, orientation, velocity, and related factors accurately mean the difference between life and death seem to be prime habitats for sophonts-to-be. This is a direct correlation: dimensional processing absolutely requires the sort of dense, complex, highly active nervous systems which give rise to sapient behaviors.

Social Behavior

Another less firm but certainly important requirement is some degree of social behavior. While sapient behaviors have been documented in a few species of totally solitary predator, it seems much more strongly favored by the evolutionary pressures presented by sociality. Living in groups requires complex communication and highly refined memory, both crucial components of sapience as we understand it. Social organisms tend to pass on learned behaviors much more readily for a variety of reasons, which is fundamental to the development of language and, by extension, the eventual building of civilization. Even the rare solitary sophonts are primarily driven toward sapience by extended interactions with increasingly intelligent prey, forming an evolutionary arms race of neural complexity on both sides of the trophic relationship.

Stages of Evolution

The evolution of sapience in any form is a gradual process of natural selection, with subsequent generations becoming more and more aware. This means that numerous clades of unrelated organisms can attain varying stages of sapience development, and exhibit different traits linked to sapience. Noeticists categorize these clades into presapience, protosapience, and sapience.
The designation of sapient is only ever given to genera or species with which complex two-way communication has been firmly established and shown the existence of metacognition - the mastery of an internal subjective reality. Sapient species are easily recognizable if they are technologically advanced, but evaluating non-technological cultural complexity and individual mental sophistication is still a vital part of the process of determining a species' sapience.
A protosapient clade exhibits all of the characteristics of sapience on a rudimentary level, and are very likely to evolve true sapience relatively soon (in evolutionary time). These clades are typically family-level or lower, most often genera.
A presapient clade, by contrast, exhibits only some characteristics of sapience and have the potential to evolve sapience, given the right selective pressures. These clades can be as taxonomically inclusive as a suborder, but are typically family-level.

Sentience Classifications

One of the two major evolutionary factors that shape the psychology of a sophont species is their sentience type: the method by which they sense the world around them. The brain collates and processes sensory information in specific ways, typically by interpreting simultaneous data from multiple linked sensory organs. The aggregate of this information forms an internal conception of the world, and the structure of this worldview affects all other thought patterns of the organism. The vast majority of complex organisms in the universe gather most of their sensory data through light-sensing and sound-sensing. Both of these senses use data based on wave physics, meaning dimensional data is gathered by intuiting parallax. This leads to an array of varying psychological frameworks based on the degree to which a sophont is able to focus: selectively concentrating its physical and mental attention on discrete information or stimuli.

Focal Sentience

Focal sophonts are characterized by a mental framework structured around focusing their attention on a particular subject amidst a larger and often discordant context. This is good for survival in many senses, but it also means the sophont may have a hard time visualizing how multiple facets add up to a single large concept, as they physically cannot unfocus. A focal sophont can shift their focus to encompass the entire context of a given focal subject, but that means letting go of the former subject and viewing the context as a focal subject of its own.
Additionally, most focal sophonts can only focus on one subject at a time, though they may be able to switch between subjects quite rapidly. However, some sophont species rely on focal sensory input from more than one set of sensors, and thus are able to dedicate their attention to two or more different things at once. Focal sapience is very common; examples include humans, skae, shyxaure, rimor, and skgri'i.

Semifocal Sentience

Semifocal sentience is a term for various forms of mental framework structured around a wide perception with limited ability to focus sensory and mental attention to one (or more) subjects. Semifocal sophonts, like nonfocal sophonts, typically perceive a large portion of their environment all at once with more or less equal clarity, but have the ability to focus their attention on specific things to some degree. This sentience type is uncommon in sophonts but not rare; examples include Calypsians and pluuniima -both species which use biosonar.

Nonfocal Sentience

Nonfocal sophonts are characterized by a mental framework structured around perceiving their entire environment holistically, with relatively uniform clarity. Sophonts with this type of sentience do have the ability to prioritize information in an intuitive sense, but cannot actually focus their attention on a select thing or even multiple select things. Thus, they can study the facets that make up a greater concept while simultaneously being wholly aware of the greater concept itself.
The drawback to this kind of sentience is that it renders details more difficult to perceive, and in some cases nonfocal sophonts may even struggle to quantify the world around them. Their attention is spread across their entire perception constantly, and they may miss small things that a focal sophont could notice and account for. Nonfocal sophonts are quite rare; the only example is the swarming motes.

Hybrid Sentience

Hybrid sentience combines focal and nonfocal sapience in a way that is different than semifocal sapience. Sophonts with this type of mental framework have a full focal capacity bestowed upon them by one or more sets of focal sensory organs, while a separate but linked part of the mind handles the nonfocal input from the panoramic sensory organs. They can then link the data provided by these two sets and formulate solutions based on both. This kind of sapience is rare; the only documented example is the ziirpu, with their combination of nine focal eyes and one spherical compound eye.

Sociality Classifications

The five 'types' of social sapience are actually broad and fuzzy-edged divisions that, together, comprise a wide spectrum of instinctive social structures, primarily determined by the relationship between individuals and their community. Sophonts closer to the collective end of this spectrum will have increasingly functional societies, whereas sophonts closer to the singular end of the spectrum will have decreasingly functional societies. At the collective extreme, social behavior is so efficient that groups effectively "loop around" to become individual entities themselves, as opposed to the singular extreme where individuals rarely interact at all, let alone form long-term groups.

Collective Sapience

Collective sociality (alternatively labeled as "eusociality"), is a behavior set wherein each member of the community works solely for the benefit of their community as a whole and has a virtually or totally nonexistent drive of individual self-preservation. The social groups formed by collective sophonts are maximally efficient, though this usually comes at the expense of individuality. Instead, it is typical for the whole community to behave like (and be treated as) a single sapient entity.
Collective sapience differs from the notion of a multicorporeal being. Rather than having an individual intelligence which inhabits multiple forms while maintaining continuity in a sort of "top-down" approach, collective sophonts are beings formed by the accumulated intelligence of many units enacting hyper-efficient social behaviors toward a common interest in a "bottom-up" approach (a phenomenon called "emergent swarm behavior"). Individual units of a collective sophont are usually not very intelligent on their own, and isolation from the group results in extreme confusion and potentially death.

Social Sapience

Social sapience is closer to the center of the spectrum on the collective side. Social sophonts are defined by complex and efficient social organization, where each member of the community unit acts much more strongly for the benefit of the community than for itself. However, an underlying drive of individual self-preservation is distinctly present in social sophonts, which differentiates this type of sapience from the absolute communistic approach of collective sapience. The majority of known spacefaring sophonts lie somewhere in this region of the sociality spectrum, including skae, Calypsians, and especially ziirpu.

Centric Sapience

Centric sapience covers the center region of the spectrum, describing sophont species wherein the psychological influences of self-preservation and altruism are more or less equal. Centric sophonts tend to evaluate their actions and priorities on a case-by-case basis, leading to a roughly equal outcome of self-interested and altruistic decisions. Social groups formed by centric sophonts are typically of a dynamic fission-fusion nature, with some forming small long-term groups. This kind of sociality is fairly common among spacefaring sophonts, notably in humans, shyxaure, and skgr'ii.

Asocial Sapience

Asocial sophonts are defined by communal instincts that are overshadowed by self-interest. While each member of an asocial community unit generally acts for the benefit of the community, any individual will readily suppress their communal instincts in favor of individual self-preservation. Typically, asocial sophonts cooperate in loose, dynamic groups with little loyalty and high fluidity, and sometimes opt to forgo social groups entirely in favor of full individualist anarchy. While rare in spacefaring sophonts, this kind of sociality is demonstrated by rimor and, to a greater extent, Xib Zjhar.

Singular Sapience

Singular sapience is the opposite of collective sapience. Singular sophonts are devoid of any communal instincts; instead they are individualistic and driven by a dominant need for self-preservation. This lack of social behavior is antithetical to the creation of large-scale civilizations, which precludes complex technological advancement and can make it very difficult to recognize singular sophonts as sophonts.
Singular sapience is incredibly rare, with only one confirmed example: the pluuniima. In studying the pluuniima and a select few other presapient species, it has been determined that singular sapience typically develops as a result of increased coordination and sensory processing abilities in solitary or mated-pair predators. However, despite the absence of pro-social behavior these species still demonstrate complex intraspecific communication and, through this, signs of consciousness.

Sociality Spectrum

Collective (Eusocial)

Motes (sapience) ▻
Vittra (presapience) ▻
Dryads (protosapience) ▻
Ziirpu (sapience) ▻
Nisse (presapience) ▻
Skae (sapience) ▻
Elephants (protosapience) ▻
Oreads (presapience) ▻
Kitsune (protosapience) ▻
Garudas (protosapience) ▻
Calypsians (sapience) ▻
Orcas (sapience) ▻
Toothed whales (presapience) ▻
Oriçielu (sapience) ▻
Parrots (presapience) ▻
Shyxaure (sapience) ▻
Selkies (protosapience) ▻
Tengu (protosapience) ▻
Corvids (protosapience) ▻

Humans (sapience) ▻
Apes (protosapience) ▻
Skgri'i (sapience) ▻

Vanaras (presapience) ▻



Rimor (sapience) ▻


Xib Zjhar (sapience) ▻



Naiads (presapience) ▻


Pluuniima (sapience) ▻

Octopi (presapience) ▻

Singular (Solitary)