this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2026
391 points (94.1% liked)
Showerthoughts
40630 readers
988 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The mirror test is frequently cited as a means of testing sentience.
OP I think you hit the nail on the head.
Based on the fact that most people don't see their interaction with the LLM as gazing into the mirror, am I being led to believe that most people are not sentient???
Based entirely on the opinions of people on niche social media platforms, yes.
Mmm, I mean, sentience is a gradient, right? The mirror test is where we decided to draw the line, but there are more places to do so. My toddler thinks his favorite toy has some level of agency, just as by all accounts his older sister thinks Bluey has an identity. Depending on the test, there are developmental markers where we statistically transition from failing to succeeding. Another way to look at it is that for each developmental range, we can develop tests that challenge how we perceive autonomy, which some people succeed at and others fail. We may have just inadvertently developed a test that a significant amount of adults are just going to fail as human beings.