Thomas nagel what is it like to be a bat. "What Is Like to Be a Bat" by Thomas Nagel 2022-12-31
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In his paper "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?", philosopher Thomas Nagel explores the question of what it is like to experience the world as a bat. Nagel argues that while we can intellectually understand the physical characteristics of a bat and its behavior, we cannot fully grasp the subjective experience of being a bat.
According to Nagel, the subjective experience of a being, or its "point of view," is a crucial aspect of its consciousness. He asserts that the subjective experience of a being cannot be reduced to its physical characteristics or behavior, as these only describe the being from an external perspective. In order to understand the subjective experience of a being, we must be able to understand the world from its point of view.
Nagel illustrates this point by considering the example of a bat. Bats have a highly developed sense of echolocation, which allows them to navigate and locate prey in the dark. While we can understand the mechanics of echolocation and the physical processes involved, we cannot fully grasp what it is like for a bat to experience the world through echolocation. We cannot understand the subjective experience of a bat's echolocation, as it is not something that we can directly experience or observe.
Nagel argues that this limitation applies to all conscious beings, not just bats. We can never fully understand the subjective experiences of other beings, as these experiences are private and unique to each individual. This is what Nagel refers to as the "subjective character of experience."
In conclusion, Nagel's paper "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" highlights the importance of the subjective experience in understanding consciousness. While we can intellectually understand the physical characteristics and behavior of a being, we cannot fully grasp the subjective experience of that being. The subjective character of experience is a fundamental aspect of consciousness that cannot be reduced to the external perspective of an observer.
Critique on Thomas Nagel's What it is like to be a bat?...
Yes, but that is not what you perceive. Naturally of course mind and matter are made of the same thing. Perhaps we will never understand, but the deniable of the problem is not right. For example, what would remain of what it is like to be a bat if we removed the bat's point of view? Defining the term mind is difficult, and is a topic that is popularly studied and debated among philosophers. It seems like physicalists cannot, therefore, explain subjective experience; by reducing it, they lose it. However, this does not imply that we have a fixed human animal nature. Still particles or waves but entirely physical.
Critique on Thomas Nagel's What it is like to be a bat?
It was one of those essays I've read where I am sort of taken a back by the significance of what I just took in. Hence, we can never truly know what-it-is-like to be a bat, a conscious alien, or even another human being. He mentions that the soul is popularly equated with identity, consciousness and memory, but fails to specify whether it is this notion or another that he uses. Why should it be similar to anything? I believe property dualism is a strong philosophical position on the mind-body issue, which can be defended through the knowledge argument against physicalism, also refuted through the problems of interaction. Abstracts should make clear what the linked material is about and what its thesis is. We can not really understand the nature of their capturing that is a physical description of the hypothesis, unless we understand the more basic idea, they have an objective nature or objective process may have a subjective nature of the process Nagel, 1998, 3-30. I quite agree that I can never really experience and understand what it is like to be a bat, this much is obvious.
12PHIL Thomas Nagel: "What is it like to be a bat?" Flashcards
If the linked material requires signing up to view, even if the account is free, it is not allowed. Post titles cannot contain questions, even if the title of the linked material is a question. This explanation would leave out the conscious experience. By this, he means that the relationships between the subject mind and the objective physical body are difficult to control or to deal with. Descartes Response To Princess Elisabeth: Summary 213 Words 1 Pages He further to response to Princess Elisabeth question by introducing to her what is called Cartesian Dualism he uses these to explain to her that the mind, soul and the body are not the same and can never be same, which came to conclude that your mind cannot be your body and your body cannot be your mind. Secondly, the human animal sitting in your chair is thinking. Ontological Relativism and the Pragmatic Notion of Metaphysical Truth The mind body problem resembles a black hole in the universe of philosophy: It takes a lot of energy which could be spent otherwise.
Thomas Nagel What Is It Like to be a Bat HW Summary
The third point in the essay would be the feeling of being a bat. Nagel claims that even if humans were able to metamorphose gradually into bats, their brains would not have been wired as bats from birth; therefore, they would only be able to experience the life and behaviors of a bat, rather than the mindset. On Kant's view, these frameworks, such as time and causation, are innate, or apart of the apparatus we are born with. When I saw a color for the first time certainly there must have been such a moment , say it was green, what about my brain made that experience subjectively green? The 'mind-body' problem has troubled philosophers for centuries. Even if we find it plausible, or even probable, that mental processes are physical brain processes, it remains true that there is something it is like to experience such brain processes. The position that I am taking on this topic is that of dualism and the argument that the mind and the body are indeed separate. Because in this conception the mind is substantively distinct from the body it becomes plausible for us to doubt the intuitive connection between mind and body.
And the 'what it is like' remains unexplained. We are familiar with this sort of thing from our experience: when I am sitting in a chair, I know what it is like to be sitting in a chair. He then compared the objective and subjective experience. We would only be imagining what it would be like for US to be bats, whereas what we want to know is what it would be like for a BAT to be a bat. If one leaves out the subjective character of experience - the what-it-is-like-ness - then the exercise is incomplete and cannot claim to prove ANYTHING.
All links to either audio or video content require abstracts of the posted material, posted as a comment in the thread. Posts must not only have a philosophical subject matter, but must also present this subject matter in a developed manner. To make things not weird, Nagel attempted to analyze this case on bats who are relatively close related to us, but still a bit different. In order to experience what it would be like to be a bat one would have to make the actual transformation to a bat and there is no way for anybody to do that Nagel, 1974, 436. This viewpoint strongly influences many ways in which we interact with our surrounding world, but it is not universally supported. To you those apples might have looked just like apples, but to an apple expert they might have looked like "Roxbury Russet", "Allington Pippin", "Åkerö" or any of the other apple cultivars out there. I will then discuss how Jackson's thought experiment, Mary, ties into his knowledge argument and how he uses it as contradictory evidence against physicalism.
Nagel claims that consciousness is the reason why the mind-body problem is so difficult. Some might suggest that we could adapt our neuro-physiological structure to better resemble that of a bat. Second, Nagel speculated regarding the development of objective phenomena. Physicalism comes to mean that there is nothing in the world that is not physical. There is only a mind-body problem when you assume there is a mind to begin with and that it's separate from the physical. Indeed, the subjective and objective point of view is on a continuum, and as you move away from the subjective experience to get an objective view, you are essentially just moving further and further away from that specific, subjective point of view.
Functionalism is the theory that reduces mental states such as thoughts, desires and beliefs solely to how they function the role they play or the job they have , sidestepping the substance that the mental states actually consist in. We have different hardware. Let me describe this position further as far as I understand it: One could say that the consciousness - for a bat, what it is like to be a bat, for me, what it is like to be me - is what physically happens in my brain. However, we can see that this imagining would only tell us what it is like for ourselves to be a bat. Ciò che vediamo, capiamo, viviamo non è mai svincolato dalla peculiare percezione «coscientizzata» che ci isola nella nostra specificità di individui e di esseri umani.
He notes that the notion that every individual has distinct concepts and awareness challenges reductionist approaches to describing cognitive functions Nagel 12. . For example, to have a thought about Mt. This, however, doesn't account for why those experiences were "green" to begin with. What connections if there are any between the mind and the body and if they are the same? Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2010 3.
