What is it like to be a bat

In his essay "What is it like to be a bat?" Thomas Nagel argues that it is impossible to express or comprehend how another creature feels, whether of a similar species or not. He believes that all we can do is envision what it's like to be a bat, but it's the most we can go and will never actually experience what a bat does. Furthermore, his concept of'subjective nature of experience' explains how the conscious condition of an organism's consciousness allows it to be itself. It, therefore, means that each organism is unique, with its unique experiences that cannot be experienced or understood by another organism (Nagel).

Interestingly, Nagel insists that this unique conscious experience cannot be explained even through the concept of physical reduction. The idea of physicalisms explains that everything that exists does not extend beyond its physical appearance and properties. Similarly, trying to understand the relationship between the mind and the physical body only brings about the body-mind problem. In light of this, Nagel explains that there is no adequate explanation that the mind and the brain are the same things as explained by psychiatrists through the reduction concept. He also insists that the reduction concept is not adequate when it explains that the processes of the mind and those of the body as the same things since these processes should exhibit a unique experience. According to him, this theory is not necessarily wrong, but he maintains that it is not satisfactory and therefore no evidence that is either true or false (Nagel).

As a matter of fact, Nagel maintains that the concept of conscious experience is more of a subjective view. He argues that an attempt to remove this experience from the subjective aspect and directing it towards the objective definition would entirely distort the meaning of consciousness thereby corrupting the meaning of the conscious experience. In support of this, Nagel suggests that it might never be possible to resolve our problem of the mind and body and that the concept might never be comprehended. Therefore, trying to understand the objective and subjective nature of beings might bring us closer to a solution of the problem.

Notably, Nagel maintains that all we could do is try to explain the concept of the brain from an understanding of the cell’s anatomy, but we would never be in a position to explain what the other organism feels. Though we may try to measure and learn these experiences, he maintains that we cannot know the feeling. In the same manner, it is possible for human beings to relate to the experiences of others but we cannot feel them. It is these unique experiences that are responsible for making each one of us unique in our different ways. Although by different organisms’ behaviors, we can understand the different functions of the brain, we cannot entirely understand how the organism thinks or feels (Nagel).

As human beings, we may have shared memories or similar experiences with one another. According to Nagel, regardless of how close or similar they might be, we cannot understand these experiences as experienced by others. Although we can come to close understanding, the experience will remain imagined, and that’s all it will ever be. In the same way, we can try to understand what it is like to be the bat, we can never fully know, and all we can do is imagine.

Objection

In his example, Thomas Nagel uses the bat to explain the concept of conscious experiences being unique. Arguably, Nagel presupposes that the bat is a conscious being. Although it is true that we cannot understand what it feels like to be the bat, we cannot compare ourselves to the bat in having a conscious. In the same light, Nagel assumes that the bat has a conscious he also assumes that the bat’s conscious is different from ours and that is why we cannot understand its experiences.

Nagel continues to maintain that our imagination is limited to our minds and its resources. According to the knowledge argument, one can learn what it is to be another, and once they experience it, they obtain an ability to remember how it feels (Jackson). In this theory, the first experience is not enough, but it is used as a reference after the subsequent experiences. Although both arguments insist on experience, is it possible that there nothing like being the bat but just a memory?

Nagel claims that we cannot know what it feels like to be the bat unless we become the bat. In disagreement, since we cannot be the bat, being the bat is nothing more than a memory in the bat's minds. In the same way, if we were able to put these memories in our minds, then we would know what it feels like to be the bat from our minds.

In his book “Free will,” Nagel also mentions that our actions are not ours but are controlled and predetermined(Nagel). Similarly, we act differently from bats since it was predetermined. Being able to know what it feels to be the bat would mean that we acted like the bat. Although that is physically impossible, putting those memories in our minds would lead us to experience what the bat experiences. Moreover, this would not be imagining would be having controlled memories.



Works cited

Jackson, Frank. "Epiphenomenal Qualia." The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 32, no. 127, 1982, p. 127. Oxford University Press (OUP), doi:10.2307/2960077.

Nagel, Thomas. "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?". The Philosophical Review, Volume 83, no. 4, 1974, pp. 435-450. JSTOR, doi:10.2307/2183914.

Nagel, Thomas. What Does It All Mean? New York, Oxford University Press, 2009.