Thomas Nagel What Is It Like to Be a Bat

1974 paper by American philosopher Thomas Nagel

Thomas Nagel argues that while a homo might be able to imagine what it is like to be a bat by taking "the bat'due south point of view", information technology would all the same be impossible "to know what information technology is like for a bat to be a bat." (Townsend's big-eared bat pictured).

"What Is It Like to Exist a Bat?" is a paper by American philosopher Thomas Nagel, first published in The Philosophical Review in October 1974, and later in Nagel'due south Mortal Questions (1979). The paper presents several difficulties posed by consciousness, including the possible insolubility of the mind-body trouble owing to "facts beyond the reach of human being concepts", the limits of objectivity and reductionism, the "phenomenological features" of subjective experience, the limits of man imagination, and what it means to be a item, witting thing.^[ane]

Nagel famously asserts that "an organism has conscious mental states if and only if in that location is something that information technology is like to be that organism—something it is like for the organism."^[two] This assertion has accomplished special status in consciousness studies every bit "the standard 'what it's like' locution."^[3] Daniel Dennett, while sharply disagreeing on some points, acknowledged Nagel'south paper every bit "the most widely cited and influential thought experiment virtually consciousness."^{[4] : 441}

Thesis [edit]

Nagel challenges the possibility of explaining "the most important and characteristic feature of witting mental phenomena" by reductive materialism (the philosophical position that all statements nigh the mind and mental states can be translated, without whatever loss or change in meaning, into statements about the physical). For instance, a reductive physicalist's solution to the mind–body problem holds that any "consciousness" is, it can exist fully described via physical processes in the brain and body.^[5]

Nagel begins by assuming that "conscious experience is a widespread phenomenon" nowadays in many animals (especially mammals), even though it is "difficult to say [...] what provides evidence of information technology." Thus, Nagel sees consciousness non as something exclusively man, just every bit something shared past many, if not all, organisms. Nagel must be speaking of something other than sensory perception, since objective facts and widespread evidence evidence that organisms with sensory organs accept biological processes of sensory perception. In fact, what all organisms share, according to Nagel, is what he calls the "subjective grapheme of experience" defined as follows: "An organism has conscious mental states if and merely if there is something that information technology is like to be that organism – something that it is like for the organism."^[one]

The paper argues that the subjective nature of consciousness undermines whatever attempt to explain consciousness via objective, reductionist ways. The subjective character of experience cannot be explained past a system of functional or intentional states. Consciousness cannot exist fully explained if the subjective grapheme of experience is ignored, and the subjective character of experience cannot be explained past a reductionist; it is a mental phenomenon that cannot be reduced to materialism.^[6] Thus, for consciousness to be explained from a reductionist opinion, the idea of the subjective character of experience would accept to be discarded, which is absurd. Neither can a physicalist view, because in such a world each phenomenal experience had past a witting beingness would accept to take a physical property attributed to it, which is impossible to prove due to the subjectivity of conscious feel. Nagel argues that each and every subjective experience is connected with a "single point of view", making it infeasible to consider any conscious feel as "objective".

Nagel uses the metaphor of bats to clarify the distinction betwixt subjective and objective concepts. Because bats are mammals, they are assumed to have conscious experience. Nagel was inspired to employ a bat for his statement after living in a domicile where the animals were frequent visitors. Nagel ultimately used bats for his argument because of their highly evolved and agile apply of a biological sensory apparatus that is significantly different from that of many other organisms. Bats use echolocation to navigate and perceive objects. This method of perception is like to the human sense of vision. Both sonar and vision are regarded as perceptual experiences. While information technology is possible to imagine what information technology would be like to fly, navigate by sonar, hang upside down and swallow insects like a bat, that is not the same every bit a bat's perspective. Nagel claims that even if humans were able to metamorphose gradually into bats, their brains would not have been wired as a bat's from nascency; therefore, they would only be able to experience the life and behaviors of a bat, rather than the mindset.^[7]

Such is the deviation between subjective and objective points of view. According to Nagel, "our own mental activity is the but unquestionable fact of our feel", meaning that each private only knows what it is like to be them (subjectivism). Objectivity requires an unbiased, not-subjective country of perception. For Nagel, the objective perspective is not feasible, because humans are limited to subjective experience.

Nagel concludes with the contention that it would be wrong to assume that physicalism is incorrect, since that position is also imperfectly understood. Physicalism claims that states and events are concrete, just those physical states and events are only imperfectly characterized. Nevertheless, he holds that physicalism cannot be understood without characterizing objective and subjective experience. That is a necessary precondition for understanding the mind-body trouble.

Criticisms [edit]

Daniel Dennett denies Nagel's claim that the bat'south consciousness is inaccessible, contending that whatsoever "interesting or theoretically important" features of a bat'due south consciousness would be acquiescent to third-person ascertainment.^{[4] : 442} For example, it is clear that bats cannot detect objects more than than a few meters away because echolocation has a limited range. Dennett holds that any similar aspects of its experiences could be gleaned by further scientific experiments.^{[4] : 443} Kathleen Akins similarly argued that many questions nearly a bat's subjective experience hinge on unanswered questions nigh the neuroscientific details of a bat's brain (such as the part of cortical activeness profiles), and Nagel is besides quick in ruling these out every bit answers to his central question.^{[viii] [9]}

Peter Hacker analyzes Nagel's statement as non just "malconstructed" merely philosophically "misconceived" every bit a definition of consciousness,^[10] and he asserts that Nagel's paper "laid the groundwork for…forty years of fresh defoliation nearly consciousness."^{[11] : 13}

Eric Schwitzgebel and Michael S. Gordon have argued that, contrary to Nagel, normal sighted humans exercise utilise echolocation much like bats - information technology is just that it is generally done without one's awareness. They use this to argue that normal people in normal circumstances tin be grossly and systematically mistaken about their witting experience.^[12]

See besides [edit]

• Beast consciousness
• Intersubjectivity
• Qualia
• Umwelt

References [edit]

1. ^ ^{a b} Nagel, Thomas (10 March 2005). Honderich, Ted (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 637. ISBN978-0-19-103747-4.
2. ^ Nagel, Thomas (1974). "What Is Information technology Similar to Be a Bat?". The Philosophical Review. 83 (four): 435–450. doi:10.2307/2183914. JSTOR 2183914.
3. ^ Levine, Joseph (2010). Review of Uriah Kriegel, Subjective Consciousness: A Self-Representational Theory. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2010 (3).
4. ^ ^{a b c} Dennett, Daniel C. (1991). Consciousness Explained. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
5. ^ Wimsatt, William C (1976). Reductionism, Levels of Organization, and the Mind-Body Problem. Springer Usa. pp. 205–267. ISBN978-1-4684-2198-9.
6. ^ "Qualia | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy". world wide web.iep.utm.edu . Retrieved 2015-06-01 .
7. ^ De Preester, Helena (2007). "The deep bodily origins of the subjective perspective: Models and their bug". Consciousness and Cognition. 16 (iii): 604–618. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2007.05.002.
8. ^ Bickle, John; Mandik, Peter; Landreth, Anthony. "The Philosophy of Neuroscience". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford. Retrieved 2 September 2020. Kathleen Akins (1993a) delved deeper into existing knowledge of bat physiology and reports much that is pertinent to Nagel's question. She argued that many of the questions well-nigh bat subjective feel that nosotros still consider open hinge on questions that remain unanswered about neuroscientific details. Ane example of the latter is the function of diverse cortical activeness profiles in the active bat.
9. ^ Akins, Kathleen (1993). "What is it Similar to exist Dull and Myopic". In Dahlbom, Bo (ed.). Dennett and His Critics: Demystifying Mind (PDF). Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell. p. 125-160. ISBN0-631-18549-6.
10. ^ Hacker, P.One thousand.S. (2002). "Is in that location anything it is like to be a bat?" (pdf). Philosophy. 77: 157–174. doi:10.1017/s0031819102000220.
11. ^ Hacker, P.Grand.S. (2012). "The Pitiful and Sorry History of Consciousness: beingness, among other things, a challenge to the "consciousness-studies community"" (pdf). Royal Institute of Philosophy. supplementary volume seventy.
12. ^ Schwitzgebel, Eric; Gordon, Michael S. (2000). "How Well Practice We Know Our Own Conscious Experience?: The Case of Human being Echolocation". Philosophical Topics. 28 (2): 235–246.

Farther reading [edit]

• "What is it like to be a bat?". Philosophical Review. LXXXIII (4): 435–450. Oct 1974. doi:x.2307/2183914.
• Hacker, P.Thousand.S. (2002). "Is there annihilation information technology is like to be a bat?" (pdf). Philosophy. 77: 157–174. doi:10.1017/s0031819102000220.
• Schwitzgebel, Eric (2020-12-23). "Is There Something Information technology's Like to Be a Garden Snail?" (PDF). {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-condition (link)

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F

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