I hate to have to break this to you dude, but any lifeform, sentient or not, is merely a biological machine, with an admittedly powerful and extensive neural network for a cpu, which is capable of learning (read: adding new algorithms).

How do you know what a dog or cat really feels, maybe it is just performing the logical outcome of it's own neural algorithms.

And who knows for sure, maybe one day some of these machines may evolve into more than just the sum of their parts?