Sent(i)ence
Classic ontological struggles, often employed in fiction, can be most generally epitomized as Man v. Man and Man v. Nature. As subcategories, Man v. Man can include Man v. Self, while Man v. Nature can include Man v. God.
As a thought experiment, consider that Man v. Nature is not a figure/ground relationship in which nonliving environments act, for better or worse, on helpless sentient beings. Erasing this distinction has the interesting consequence of erasing the distinction thought to cohere between the living and the nonliving.
intrinsi on February 8th 2007 in Information Science