sentience

Etymology

From sentient, from Latin sentiēns, present participle of sentiō (“feel, sense”). Compare with sentence, its equivalent formation from Classic Latin sententia (for *sentientia).

noun

1. The state or quality of being sentient; possession of consciousness or sensory awareness.
   [T]he shadows […] presently began to seem, as on last night, to have a sentience of their own. 1903, Bram Stoker, chapter 5, in The Jewel of Seven Stars
   The science of animal sentience is far from a firm one; there's no way of knowing exactly what any animal is feeling. Dec 28, 2007, Alexandra Silver, “Did This Tiger Hold a Grudge?”, in Time, archived from the original on 2010-04-20