What how?

Sentience; the readiness to perceive sensations; elementary or undifferentiated consciousness. (onelook)

Is sentience just awareness of sensation, or is it a greater understanding of wider environs - of our impact on others and environment rather then simply environments impact on us?

Therein maybe lies a key to unlocking peace. We all strive to survive, most of us anyway.

A destructive survival mechanism might reason; "we are unhappy living this way, we would be happier living another way, and to get there we destroy such and such". A creative survival mechanism might reason; "we are unhappy living this way, we would be happier living another way and to get there we make such and such". On the face of it, one looks destructive and the other constructive. Except that how do we know that what the creative mechanism creates is not going to require the destruction of some other thing?

Can sentient beings evolve on constructive thought alone?

Or is sentience typified by progression - where destructive thought becomes critical, then expressive and finally creative. Is a cyclic flow inevitable - returning to destructive and repeating through critical, expressive and creative over and again. Can we stem the damage by introducing less destructive arenas for destructive tendency?

Is sentience simply sensory, or is it more. And if is more, is it wholistic - an awareness of reciprocal impact.

Who knows, I was just wondering.