Questioning existence exclusive to sentience, or consciousness, or both?

Hello. I'm just wondering what others take is on if being able to question and ponder the nature of one's existence would be considered an ability more of sentience, or consciousness, or perhaps both.

I know those 2 things are often taken to be the same but are technically different, so like I said I'm just wondering if the ability to question existence is more exclusive to one or the other, or both/either one would give the ability.

So if the difference of consciousness and sentience is being aware, perhaps it is more like a spectrum of consciousness and sentience is on the lower end. Sorry for a not so scientific reply I just found it interesting and wanted to put a little thought into this thread. I just learned that there is a difference using Google so feel free to correct me. So I guess I would say conscious beings could ponder, sentient probably couldn't? But if you can feel all these things I don't know how you would categorize them in your mind without thinking about them and then being aware that you are doing that.

I think sentience implies that one can feel, while consciousness implies that one can think and feel, perhaps.

Webster Dictionary's definitions:
Consciousness: : the quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself
b : the state or fact of being conscious of an external object, state, or fact
c : awareness especially : concern for some social or political cause The organization aims to raise the political consciousness of teenagers.
2 : the state of being characterized by sensation, emotion, volition, and thought : mind

3 : the totality of conscious states of an individual

4 : the normal state of conscious life regained consciousness

5 : the upper level of mental life of which the person is aware as contrasted with unconscious processes



Sentience: feeling or sensation as distinguished from perception and thought

The difference between the two:

To be conscious is to be aware and have a subjective experience with the world around you. I think it is an umbrella term used to encompass other words like: awareness, sentience, perception, reasoning, thinking, analyzing, etc.

Sentience is when you have positive/negative experiences from external input. I.e. you touch a hot radiator and burn your hand, that is a negative experience. So sentience is your ability to feel, to be conscious and aware of how your external environment effects you.