Nagel, What Is It Like to Be a Bat?

1974 paper by American philosopher Thomas Nagel

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

"What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" is a paper by American philosopher Thomas Nagel, first published in The Philosophical Review in October 1974, and afterward in Nagel'due south Mortal Questions (1979). The paper presents several difficulties posed by consciousness, including the possible insolubility of the mind-body problem owing to "facts beyond the accomplish of human concepts", the limits of objectivity and reductionism, the "phenomenological features" of subjective feel, the limits of human being imagination, and what it means to exist a detail, witting thing.^[1]

Nagel famously asserts that "an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is similar to be that organism—something it is like for the organism."^[ii] This assertion has accomplished special status in consciousness studies as "the standard 'what it'due south like' locution."^[iii] Daniel Dennett, while sharply disagreeing on some points, acknowledged Nagel'due south paper equally "the most widely cited and influential thought experiment near consciousness."^{[four] : 441}

Thesis [edit]

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

Nagel begins by assuming that "conscious experience is a widespread miracle" present in many animals (specially mammals), fifty-fifty though it is "hard to say [...] what provides prove of information technology." Thus, Nagel sees consciousness not every bit something exclusively human, but as something shared by many, if not all, organisms. Nagel must exist speaking of something other than sensory perception, since objective facts and widespread evidence bear witness that organisms with sensory organs have biological processes of sensory perception. In fact, what all organisms share, according to Nagel, is what he calls the "subjective character of experience" defined as follows: "An organism has conscious mental states if and merely if at that place is something that it is similar to be that organism – something that it is like for the organism."^[ane]

The newspaper argues that the subjective nature of consciousness undermines whatever try to explain consciousness via objective, reductionist means. The subjective grapheme of feel cannot exist explained by a system of functional or intentional states. Consciousness cannot be fully explained if the subjective character of experience is ignored, and the subjective grapheme of feel cannot exist 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 stance, the idea of the subjective character of feel would have to be discarded, which is absurd. Neither tin can a physicalist view, considering in such a earth each phenomenal feel had by a conscious being would have to have a concrete property attributed to information technology, which is impossible to prove due to the subjectivity of conscious experience. Nagel argues that each and every subjective feel is connected with a "single point of view", making it infeasible to consider whatsoever conscious experience equally "objective".

Nagel uses the metaphor of bats to clarify the distinction betwixt subjective and objective concepts. Because bats are mammals, they are assumed to take conscious experience. Nagel was inspired to utilize a bat for his argument subsequently living in a home where the animals were frequent visitors. Nagel ultimately used bats for his argument because of their highly evolved and agile use of a biological sensory apparatus that is significantly dissimilar from that of many other organisms. Bats use echolocation to navigate and perceive objects. This method of perception is similar to the man sense of vision. Both sonar and vision are regarded as perceptual experiences. While it is possible to imagine what information technology would be similar to fly, navigate past sonar, hang upside downwards and eat insects like a bat, that is non the same as a bat's perspective. Nagel claims that even if humans were able to metamorphose gradually into bats, their brains would not take been wired as a bat'southward from birth; therefore, they would only be able to experience the life and behaviors of a bat, rather than the mindset.^[seven]

Such is the difference between subjective and objective points of view. According to Nagel, "our own mental activity is the only unquestionable fact of our experience", meaning that each individual only knows what it is like to exist them (subjectivism). Objectivity requires an unbiased, non-subjective state 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 physical, simply 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 heed-trunk problem.

Criticisms [edit]

Daniel Dennett denies Nagel's claim that the bat's consciousness is inaccessible, contending that any "interesting or theoretically important" features of a bat's consciousness would be amenable to third-person observation.^{[4] : 442} For instance, it is articulate that bats cannot find objects more than than a few meters away considering echolocation has a limited range. Dennett holds that whatsoever similar aspects of its experiences could be gleaned by further scientific experiments.^{[iv] : 443} Kathleen Akins similarly argued that many questions nearly a bat's subjective experience hinge on unanswered questions about the neuroscientific details of a bat's brain (such every bit the part of cortical activity profiles), and Nagel is too quick in ruling these out as answers to his central question.^{[8] [9]}

Peter Hacker analyzes Nagel's statement every bit not only "malconstructed" only philosophically "misconceived" as a definition of consciousness,^[10] and he asserts that Nagel'due south paper "laid the groundwork for…forty years of fresh confusion about consciousness."^{[11] : 13}

Eric Schwitzgebel and Michael S. Gordon have argued that, contrary to Nagel, normal sighted humans do use echolocation much like bats - information technology is just that it is more often than not done without ane's awareness. They employ this to argue that normal people in normal circumstances can be grossly and systematically mistaken about their conscious experience.^[12]

Meet also [edit]

• Animate being consciousness
• Intersubjectivity
• Qualia
• Umwelt

References [edit]

1. ^ ^{a b} Nagel, Thomas (x 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 It Like to Be a Bat?". The Philosophical Review. 83 (4): 435–450. doi:10.2307/2183914. JSTOR 2183914.
3. ^ Levine, Joseph (2010). Review of Uriah Kriegel, Subjective Consciousness: A Cocky-Representational Theory. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2010 (three).
4. ^ ^{a b c} Dennett, Daniel C. (1991). Consciousness Explained. Boston: Little, Brownish and Visitor.
5. ^ Wimsatt, William C (1976). Reductionism, Levels of Arrangement, and the Mind-Trunk Problem. Springer U.s.. pp. 205–267. ISBN978-ane-4684-2198-9.
6. ^ "Qualia | Cyberspace 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 (3): 604–618. doi:x.1016/j.concog.2007.05.002.
8. ^ Bickle, John; Mandik, Peter; Landreth, Anthony. "The Philosophy of Neuroscience". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford. Retrieved two September 2020. Kathleen Akins (1993a) delved deeper into existing knowledge of bat physiology and reports much that is pertinent to Nagel'due south question. She argued that many of the questions about bat subjective experience that we yet consider open hinge on questions that remain unanswered nigh neuroscientific details. One instance of the latter is the function of diverse cortical activity profiles in the active bat.
9. ^ Akins, Kathleen (1993). "What is it Like to be Boring 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.M.Southward. (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.M.S. (2012). "The Sad and Sorry History of Consciousness: existence, among other things, a challenge to the "consciousness-studies customs"" (pdf). Royal Institute of Philosophy. supplementary volume seventy.
12. ^ Schwitzgebel, Eric; Gordon, Michael Due south. (2000). "How Well Do Nosotros Know Our Ain Conscious Experience?: The Case of Human Echolocation". Philosophical Topics. 28 (2): 235–246.

Further reading [edit]

• "What is it like to be a bat?". Philosophical Review. LXXXIII (4): 435–450. Oct 1974. doi:10.2307/2183914.
• Hacker, P.M.S. (2002). "Is there anything information technology is like to be a bat?" (pdf). Philosophy. 77: 157–174. doi:10.1017/s0031819102000220.
• Schwitzgebel, Eric (2020-12-23). "Is At that place Something It's Like to Be a Garden Snail?" (PDF). {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

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