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One big standard is the ability to recognize oneself in a mirror and, insofar as I'm aware, humans are the only ones who have yet to pass it consistently. (Perhaps a few great apes have done so since.)

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No? The 'mirror test' has been passed by a range of animals, including apes, elephants and dolphins.

But anyway it's obviously meaningless when we're talking about plants.

Blind humans cannot recognize themselves in a mirror either, but it doesn't mean anything about their sentience.

It becomes further confused when animals like dogs are introduced into the equation. They fail the visual mirror test, primarily because vision isn't their primary sense.

There's also a paper regarding the mirror test and ants - http://www.journalofscience.net/File_Folder/521-532(jos).pdf

Why is this a big standard for sentience? Seems like a silly, contrived test.

Because it's something that we thought only humans can do. Of course, we've now replaced it with something else that we think only humans can do.

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