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58-601: The Pattern is inscribed on the floor of a large cavern that is part of a system of caves deep within Mount Kolvir, directly underneath Castle Amber in the city of Amber. The Pattern is a single, intertwined curve, laid out in a spiderweb-like shape. Members of the Royal Family of Amber can walk along the Pattern to its center in order to gain the power to walk among shadows – alternate worlds. Whether members of

116-685: A Bat? ", consciousness can refer to the ability of any entity to have subjective perceptual experiences, or as some philosophers refer to them, " qualia "—in other words, the ability to have states that it feels like something to be in. Some philosophers, notably Colin McGinn , believe that the physical process causing consciousness to happen will never be understood, a position known as " new mysterianism ". They do not deny that most other aspects of consciousness are subject to scientific investigation but they argue that qualia will never be explained. Other philosophers, such as Daniel Dennett , argue that qualia

174-525: A Veil causes the resistance to let up a bit. Once at the Pattern's center, the walker has acquired the power to walk in Shadow. As well, being at the center gives him the opportunity to command the Pattern to send him anywhere he wishes – across the room, back up to Amber Castle, across the world, to another Shadow world, here on Earth, etc. In the Merlin Cycle, the second series of five novels in

232-487: A machine conscious in exactly the way humans are is not one that we are equipped to take on." Indeed, leading AI textbooks do not mention "sentience" at all. Digital sentience is of considerable interest to the philosophy of mind . Functionalist philosophers consider that sentience is about "causal roles" played by mental states, which involve information processing. In this view, the physical substrate of this information processing does not need to be biological, so there

290-501: A previously unseen location. The Primal Pattern was guarded by a purple Griffin named Wixer that apparently had also been placed there to guard Dworkin (previously thought deceased), as Dworkin had, at this point, lost much of his mental faculty. This Primal Pattern was damaged prior to the events of Nine Princes in Amber when Amberite blood was spilled on it – the blood of Martin, son of Random (Oberon's youngest acknowledged child), who

348-562: A punning reference to the Logrus and the Pattern in an example of regular expression usage. In the example, a search-and-replace operation is being executed. The text to search for is specified as a regular expression pattern . The sample text to replace the pattern with is logrus . Sentience Sentience is the ability to experience feelings and sensations. It may not necessarily imply higher cognitive functions such as awareness , reasoning , or complex thought processes. Sentience

406-447: A similar way to the initiates of the true Patterns. However, the broken path manifests itself in a number of ways. The main example is that the break in the Pattern manifests itself in each Shadow the initiate visits. The size of the break depends on the size of the break in the Pattern and its distance in Shadow from Amber. Broken Pattern mages draw their power directly from the break, similar to drawing their power from Chaos. Each image of

464-421: A tentacular force that must be navigated on a magical/mental level. Those who navigate this construct successfully gain power over, and the ability to travel through, Shadow. An additional power gained from the successful navigation of the Logrus is the ability to "pull" desired, non-specific objects out of Shadow worlds. Negotiating the Logrus is extremely difficult and potentially fatal. Prospective initiates of

522-501: Is a minimalistic way of defining consciousness, which otherwise commonly and collectively describes sentience plus further features of the mind and consciousness, such as creativity , intelligence , sapience , self-awareness , and intentionality (the ability to have thoughts about something). These further features of consciousness may not be necessary for sentience, which is the capacity to feel sensations and emotions. According to Thomas Nagel in his paper " What Is It Like to Be

580-472: Is an important concept in ethics , as the ability to experience happiness or suffering often forms a basis for determining which entities deserve moral consideration , particularly in utilitarianism . In Asian religions, the word "sentience" has been used to translate a variety of concepts. In science fiction , the word "sentience" is sometimes used interchangeably with " sapience ", " self-awareness ", or " consciousness ". Some writers differentiate between

638-628: Is concerned that AI sentience would be particularly easy to deny, and that if achieved, humans might nevertheless continue to treat AI systems as mere tools. He notes that the linguistic behaviour of LLMs is not a reliable way to assess whether they are sentient. He suggests to apply theories of consciousness, such as the global workspace theory , to the algorithms implicitly learned by LLMs, but noted that this technique requires advances in AI interpretability to understand what happens inside. He also mentions some other pathways that may lead to AI sentience, such as

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696-645: Is considered objective from subjective phenomena. Krzysztof M. Maj saw the Pattern as the "symbolical gate" linking our empirical world with the fantastic one of the novels, comparable in function to the wardrobe in The Chronicles of Narnia or the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland . The Pattern has been analyzed in metaphorical counterpoint to the Trumps, where the Trumps represent "wild cards" blurring

754-494: Is entitled, at a minimum, to protection from unnecessary suffering , though animal-rights advocates may differ on what rights (e.g., the right to life) may be entailed by simple sentience. Sentiocentrism describes the theory that sentient individuals are the center of moral concern. Gary Francione also bases his abolitionist theory of animal rights, which differs significantly from Singer's , on sentience. He asserts that, "All sentient beings, humans or nonhuman, have one right:

812-466: Is just a device for controlling the weather, useful in battle, but then Corwin is told that if he walks the Pattern carrying the Jewel, and then uses the power of the Pattern to project himself into it, he will gain a new level of power. When he does this, he finds that the Jewel itself contains a Pattern, in three or even more dimensions. Eventually, he learns from Dworkin that the Jewel is the real source of

870-443: Is no theoretical barrier to the possibility of sentient machines. According to type physicalism however, the physical constitution is important; and depending on the types of physical systems required for sentience, it may or may not be possible for certain types of machines (such as electronic computing devices) to be sentient. The discussion on the topic of alleged sentience of artificial intelligence has been reignited in 2022 by

928-560: Is not a meaningful concept. Regarding animal consciousness , the Cambridge Declaration of Consciousness , publicly proclaimed on 7 July 2012 at Cambridge University, states that many non-human animals possess the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states, and can exhibit intentional behaviors. The declaration notes that all vertebrates (including fish and reptiles) have this neurological substrate for consciousness, and that there

986-422: Is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?" Richard D. Ryder defines sentientism broadly as the position according to which an entity has moral status if and only if it is sentient. In David Chalmer's more specific terminology, Bentham is a narrow sentientist , since his criterion for moral status is not only the ability to experience any phenomenal consciousness at all, but specifically

1044-402: Is related to the concept of ahimsa , non-violence toward other beings. In some forms of Buddhism, plants, stones and other inanimate objects are considered to be 'sentient'. In Jainism many things are endowed with a soul, jīva , which is sometimes translated as 'sentience'. Some things are without a soul, ajīva , such as a chair or spoon. There are different rankings of jīva based on

1102-467: Is strong evidence that many invertebrates also have it. David Chalmers argues that sentience is sometimes used as shorthand for phenomenal consciousness , the capacity to have any subjective experience at all, but sometimes refers to the narrower concept of affective consciousness , the capacity to experience subjective states that have affective valence (i.e., a positive or negative character), such as pain and pleasure. The sentience quotient concept

1160-429: Is whether the way these noxious stimuli are processed within the brain leads to a subjective experience of pain. To address that, researchers often look for behavioral cues. For example, "if a dog with an injured paw whimpers, licks the wound, limps, lowers pressure on the paw while walking, learns to avoid the place where the injury happened and seeks out analgesics when offered, we have reasonable grounds to assume that

1218-466: The brain emulation of sentient animals. a. Quote: "The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing

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1276-468: The AI system excels at this, providing answers to challenging topics about the nature of emotions , generating Aesop -style fables on cue, and even describing its alleged fears. Nick Bostrom considers that while LaMDA is probably not sentient, being very sure of it would require understanding how consciousness works, having access to unpublished information about LaMDA's architecture, and finding how to apply

1334-514: The Chronicles, the Pattern is shown to be sentient . It is able to manifest itself at any point in shadow, and teleport others without their consent. It is also able to create Pattern ghosts , echo versions of any person who has walked the Pattern. During the series, it is revealed that Amber itself is but the first "Shadow" of a Primal pattern, located when the Unicorn of Order led Corwin to

1392-573: The EU and its member states to "pay full regards to the welfare requirements of animals". Nociception is the process by which the nervous system detects and responds to potentially harmful stimuli, leading to the sensation of pain . It involves specialized receptors called nociceptors that sense damage or threat and send signals to the brain. Nociception is widespread among animals, even among insects. The presence of nociception indicates an organism's ability to detect harmful stimuli. A further question

1450-489: The Logrus and the Pattern, as Merlin has, is a uniquely daring feat. Just as Dworkin Barimen is the keeper of the Pattern, Suhuy is the keeper of the Logrus and is a member of the noble houses of Chaos. Naturally, the Pattern is recognized as a symbol of order in scholarly analysis, and as such has been described "as the antithesis and rival" of the Logrus , the sign of chaos in the novels. Some analysis has emphasized

1508-427: The Logrus generally receive advanced training, but success is dependent less on knowledge than on will. In addition to the danger of dying, some who have attempted the Logrus have experienced permanent cerebral damage, though this fate tends to happen only to those who are weak-willed or not of full chaosian blood. Luckily those of chaosian blood usually only end up being insane for a short period of time. Negotiating both

1566-517: The Old Pattern at its restoration. At any rate, after its repair, the Old Pattern (when displaying sentience) does not appear to display any clear characteristics of Oberon's personality. Through the course of the ten books, the existence of many other alternate Patterns is revealed. There is the Pattern in Rebma (Amber spelled backward), a reflected version of Amber beneath the sea; there is one in

1624-435: The Old Pattern, and it was seen to coexist peacefully with Corwin's New Pattern – possibly because both are reflections of the Pattern in the Jewel of Judgment. It is implied that nobody could successfully repair the damaged Pattern perfectly , or reproduce it as it originally was – and that their own personality would be inevitably imprinted on it in the attempt. This is accepted – and desired – by Brand, who wished to destroy

1682-423: The Pattern degenerates the farther it is from Amber. The first nine broken images were negotiable, but Merlin in the course of Knight of Shadows , repaired one – presumably leaving only eight. It might be however that other patterns became safe enough to use after this. The Jewel of Judgment is a large ruby-like gem worn as a pendant around the neck. As the saga progresses, its importance grows. At first, it

1740-518: The Pattern is not an easy task. There is a resistance that slows the walker as if he is wearing lead boots that get heavier and heavier with every step. During the ordeal, the walker passes through several points of extreme difficulty called "veils" – The First Veil, the Second Veil, and the Final Veil. These points represent intense surges in this fierce resistance, but "breaking through"

1798-515: The Pattern of Amber and that it was obtained from the Unicorn. Corwin uses the Jewel to forge his own Pattern when he believes that Amber's Pattern has been destroyed. Standing at the center of his Pattern, he is then able to project himself into the final battle at the Courts of Chaos. The Jewel of Judgment is revealed to be the left eye of the Serpent of Chaos, stolen by the Unicorn at some point in

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1856-426: The Pattern outright and re-create a new Pattern in his own image, with himself as the architect of the new multiverse: A fact either not known, not believed, or misunderstood by Corwin, who attempts to faithfully recreate the Old Pattern (after Brand deceives him into believing Oberon to have failed in his attempt to repair the original) only for his New Pattern to not only evolve differently but also to eventually resist

1914-403: The Pattern to its initiates, to "create new realities simply by imagining a place and then going to it", could be a metaphor "for Zelazny's thoughts on writing as a form of creation". The Logrus has been called a source of "tactical nuclear weaponry, remote handling, and magical apportation". In one analysis, the Logrus has been construed as a rival metaphysical entity to the Unicorn of Amber, not

1972-501: The Pattern, with the climax of the Merlin Cycle a conflict between these forces. Computer programmer Felix "Dworkin" Croes , creator of the server software Dworkin's Game Driver or DGD, named the development MUD for his project The Pattern . Esoterism scholar Kateryna Zorya remarked that the terms "Pattern" and "Logrus" from Zelazny's novels, like other influences from Western fantasy, have found their way into post-Soviet magical practice . In Pro Perl , Peter Wainwright makes

2030-486: The ability to experience conscious states with negative affective valence (i.e. suffering). Animal welfare and rights advocates often invoke similar capacities. For example, the documentary Earthlings argues that while animals do not have all the desires and ability to comprehend as do humans, they do share the desires for food and water, shelter and companionship, freedom of movement and avoidance of pain. Animal-welfare advocates typically argue that any sentient being

2088-471: The absence of a direct equivalent of the neocortex in their brain, was used as an argument against sentience. Jennifer Jacquet suggests that the belief that fish do not feel pain originated in response to a 1980s policy aimed at banning catch and release . The range of animals regarded by scientists as sentient or conscious has progressively widened, now including animals such as fish, lobsters and octopus. Digital sentience (or artificial sentience) means

2146-435: The attempts of the successfully-Repaired Pattern to incorporate it. It follows, from this (and from the fact of Corwin's successful creation of a New Pattern, in which he did not die) that it may not have been necessary for Oberon to die in repairing the Old Pattern. Since Oberon did indeed die, he may even have done so willingly (and known in advance that this was necessary) as a way to avoid imprinting his own personality on

2204-580: The basic right not to be treated as the property of others." Andrew Linzey , a British theologian , considers that Christianity should regard sentient animals according to their intrinsic worth, rather than their utility to humans. In 1997 the concept of animal sentience was written into the basic law of the European Union. The legally binding protocol annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam recognises that animals are "sentient beings", and requires

2262-489: The claims made about Google 's LaMDA ( Language Model for Dialogue Applications) artificial intelligence system that it is "sentient" and had a " soul ". LaMDA is an artificial intelligence system that creates chatbots —AI robots designed to communicate with humans—by gathering vast amounts of text from the internet and using algorithms to respond to queries in the most fluid and natural way possible. The transcripts of conversations between scientists and LaMDA reveal that

2320-589: The concept is related to the Bodhisattva , an enlightened being devoted to the liberation of others. The first vow of a Bodhisattva states, "Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to free them." Sentience has been a central concept in the animal rights movement, tracing back to the well-known writing of Jeremy Bentham in An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation : "The question

2378-455: The crucial role that the psyche of the Pattern's creator, whether Dworkin in the case of the Pattern of Amber or Corwin in the case of his new Pattern, may be expected to play in the cosmos formed from it. When it is revealed in the novels that the Pattern itself has its origins in Chaos, this may have been written as illustrating Edmund Husserl 's arguments regarding the production of that which

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2436-411: The distinction between perception and reality, but both are sources of empowerment for their users. Olga Valikova praised the Pattern as an extraordinary instance where an architectonic image plays a central role in a literary work and compared it to the organizational principle of the novel Singing Stones by Kazakh writer Aslan Zhaksylykov . Jane M. Lindskold proposed that the ability granted by

2494-715: The dog is indeed experiencing something unpleasant." Avoiding painful stimuli unless the reward is significant can also provide evidence that pain avoidance is not merely an unconscious reflex (similarly to how humans "can choose to press a hot door handle to escape a burning building"). Animals such as pigs , chickens , and fish are typically recognized as sentient. There is more uncertainty regarding insects , and findings on certain insect species may not be applicable to others. Historically, fish were not considered sentient, and their behaviors were often viewed as "reflexes or complex, unconscious species-typical responses" to their environment. Their dissimilarity with humans, including

2552-634: The ghost-city reflection of Amber in Tir-na Nog'th; there is the Primal Pattern, the one true Pattern that is higher on the reality scale than even Amber; Corwin's own Pattern, off in Shadow; and even imperfect versions of the Pattern found in Shadows very close to the true Pattern. The latter are called 'Broken Patterns' and can be walked by anyone with enough courage to do so. Broken Patterns allow initiates to traverse shadow and perform magic in

2610-417: The house of Amber create the shadows they walk into or that the shadows already exist and that the pattern walker merely enters them is a subject that the author Zelazny leaves open to reader interpretation. Once a walker sets foot upon the Pattern, he must continue following its labyrinthine course to the center; stopping for too long, or leaving the pathway of the Pattern, results in a terrible death. Walking

2668-584: The mere ability to perceive sensations, such as light or pain, and the ability to perceive emotions , such as fear or grief . The subjective awareness of experiences by a conscious individual are known as qualia in Western philosophy . "Sentience" was first coined by philosophers in the 1630s for the concept of an ability to feel, derived from Latin sentiens (feeling). In philosophy, different authors draw different distinctions between consciousness and sentience. According to Antonio Damasio , sentience

2726-401: The neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates." b. Quote: "Granted, these animals do not have all the desires we humans have; granted, they do not comprehend everything we humans comprehend; nevertheless, we and they do have some of

2784-615: The number of senses it has. Water, for example, is a sentient being of the first order, as it is considered to possess only one sense, that of touch. Sentience in Buddhism is the state of having senses. In Buddhism, there are six senses, the sixth being the subjective experience of the mind. Sentience is simply awareness prior to the arising of Skandha . Thus, an animal qualifies as a sentient being. According to Buddhism, sentient beings made of pure consciousness are possible. In Mahayana Buddhism, which includes Zen and Tibetan Buddhism ,

2842-477: The person who is raging against him. After being trapped in a strange world peopled with ghosts induced by the Pattern, Merlin discovers that he is involved in a superpower quarrel between Amber's Pattern and the Logrus of Chaos. Kirkus Reviews called the novel a "mega-yarn so hypercomplicated that Zelazny spends the first 50 pages here explaining--not always convincingly--who's been doing what to whom, and why." Publishers Weekly wrote: "Readers who enjoyed

2900-480: The philosophical theory to the machine. He also said about LLMs that "it's not doing them justice to say they're simply regurgitating text", noting that they "exhibit glimpses of creativity, insight and understanding that are quite impressive and may show the rudiments of reasoning". He thinks that "sentience is a matter of degree". In 2022, philosopher David Chalmers made a speech on whether large language models (LLMs) can be conscious, encouraging more research on

2958-477: The poetic writing, skilled plotting and crafted characterizations of the original Amber books will be disappointed again." Drew Bittner of the Asbury Park Press wrote: "With his customary excellent imagery and strong characterization, especially the running dialogue between Merlin and his magical strangling cord, Zelazny's newest work is a worthy addition to the Amber series, adding a few more clues to

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3016-608: The same desires and do comprehend some of the same things. The desires for food and water, shelter and companionship, freedom of movement and avoidance of pain." Knight of Shadows Knight of Shadows is a fantasy novel by American writer Roger Zelazny , published in November 1989. It is the ninth book in the Amber saga. Merlin continues to attempt to solve the mysteries in his life, in particular understanding why Julia turned against him, how she got involved with Jurt, and

3074-704: The sentience of artificial intelligences . The question of whether artificial intelligences can be sentient is controversial. The AI research community does not consider sentience (that is, the "ability to feel sensations") as an important research goal, unless it can be shown that consciously "feeling" a sensation can make a machine more intelligent than just receiving input from sensors and processing it as information. Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig wrote in 2021: "We are interested in programs that behave intelligently. Individual aspects of consciousness—awareness, self-awareness, attention—can be programmed and can be part of an intelligent machine. The additional project making

3132-429: The subject. He suggested that current LLMs were probably not conscious, but that the limitations are temporary and that future systems could be serious candidates for consciousness. According to Jonathan Birch , "measures to regulate the development of sentient AI should run ahead of what would be proportionate to the risks posed by current technology, considering also the risks posed by credible future trajectories." He

3190-462: The theoretical computational limit of the entire universe. On a logarithmic scale it runs from −70 up to +50. Eastern religions including Hinduism , Buddhism , Sikhism , and Jainism recognise non-humans as sentient beings. The term sentient beings is translated from various Sanskrit terms ( jantu, bahu jana, jagat, sattva ) and "conventionally refers to the mass of living things subject to illusion, suffering, and rebirth ( Saṃsāra )". It

3248-435: The very distant past. It eventually ends up serving as a replacement eye for Coral , allowing her to see the "clear, cold lines of eternity". In the Courts of Chaos exists the Logrus, a three-dimensional construct that is the opposite number to the Pattern of Amber. Where the unchanging, rigid Pattern represents Order, the Logrus is constantly altering its shape and represents the principle of Chaos. The Logrus appears as

3306-416: Was introduced by Robert A. Freitas Jr. in the late 1970s. It defines sentience as the relationship between the information processing rate of each individual processing unit (neuron), the weight/size of a single unit, and the total number of processing units (expressed as mass). It was proposed as a measure for the sentience of all living beings and computers from a single neuron up to a hypothetical being at

3364-516: Was stabbed by Brand. Oberon attempted to repair the Pattern, although he realized the process would kill him. Brand, whom Dworkin acknowledged as his most apt pupil in the study of the Pattern, suggested that such repair may not be possible. Brand also suggested when Corwin was inscribing his own New Pattern that there could not be two such centers of order in the multiverse and that it would be necessary to destroy Corwin's New Pattern before Brand could inscribe his own. However, Oberon successfully repaired

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