The Sentient Principle

This book presents a paradigmatic revolution in understanding mind and life by introducing the Sentient Principle—a comprehensive framework that places first-person sentience at the ontological foundation of all living systems. Departing from the traditional consciousness-centered approach that has long mired research in philosophical ambiguity, we redirect scientific inquiry toward the concrete entity casting the shadow: life itself as a sentient system.The framework introduces key innovations: (1) Systemic Feelings as the holistic background representation of organismic state; (2) Sensation Discrepancy as the universal driver of learning and action selection; (3) Value-Dependent Selective Stabilization through Hebbian plasticity and reentry; (4) A Three-Layer Structure (Vital, Social, Noetic) that naturalizes the emergence of complex cognition from basic physiological foundations.The work culminates in both a scientific framework and an ethical vision: to cultivate sentient persons capable of deep self-awareness, empathic resonance, and warm acceptance of life's irreducible plurality.