Nagel's "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?"

I would like to begin this paper by addressing what question I hope to answer through the entirety of this paper: is the mind physical? As simple as this question may seem to be, there still, to this day, is not a definite answer. There are, mostly, two approaches to answering this problem, through dualism or physicalism. The dualist, for the purposes of this paper, simply believes that the mind and the body are not equal and therefore, they are not one in the same. The physicalist, however, would come back to say that there are no such things as non-physical objects and therefore, they would conclude that the body and the mind are both physical. After weighing on both sides of this argument, I am going to defend the physicalist ideas and

Consciousness, Thomas Nagel states, “is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable.” Here he refers particularly to phenomenal consciousness, which Block defines as “perceptual experiences,” and Nagel describes as “something that it is to be.’ This experiential element appears to present a challenge to the physicalist assertion that all mental processes are explicable in terms of physical brain states, biochemical reactions and the laws of physics. Frank Jackson presents this argument in his 1982 thesis Epiphenomenal Qualia. Whilst Jackson’s argument occupies a seminal position in philosophy of mind, whether he adds anything new to knowledge of the nature of conscious experience, is debateable. Thomas Nagel’s What is it like to

“What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” is American philosopher, Thomas Nagel’s, opinion on the widely debated mind-body problem. Nagel introduces the paper by explaining what it means for something to be conscious. He defines consciousness as an organism’s ability for there to be something it is like to be that organism. Using his definition of consciousness Nagel suggests that physicalism cannot be successfully defended using the popular reductionism theory. This is because in order to be defended a physical account must be given to phenomenological features themselves. This leads Nagel to his argument, “Every subjective phenomenon is essentially connected with a single point of view, and it seems inevitable that an objective, physical theory will

When contemplating the relationship between the mind and body, most philosophers advocate either dualism, the view that the mind and body belong to the mental and physical categories respectively, or physicalism, the stance that there is only the physical. (Gertler 108) Brie Gertler upholds the former perspective, and her essay In Defense of Mind-Body Dualism aims to disprove physicalism by establishing the possibility of experiencing pain without the firing of C-fibers, which physicalists believe is identical to pain. (110) She claims that thought experiments are best for determining matters of possibility, but only if such experiments utilize “sufficiently comprehensive” concepts. After first clarifying why Gertler emphasizes the need for

The 'mind-body' problem has troubled philosophers for centuries. This is because no human being has been able to sufficiently explain how the mind actually works and how this mind relates to the body - most importantly to the brain. If this were not true then there would not be such heated debates on the subject. No one objects to the notion that the Earth revolves around the sun because it is empirical fact. However, there is no current explanation on the mind that can be accepted as fact. In 'What is it like to be a bat?', Thomas Nagel does not attempt to solve this 'problem'. Instead, he attempts to reject the reductionist views with his argument on subjectivity. He

In his paper “Mind and Body Problem”, Jerome Shaffer examines the much discussed view of the relation between mental and physical events. According to this view consideration is given to whether or not mental events can occur in the same place the corresponding physical events occur. In the course of his examination of this view, Shaffer considers one difficulty which arises in connection with it, and concludes that it is insurmountable. Unfortunately, his treatment of what he takes to be the central difficulty with the view in question is seriously defected and my purpose in this paper is to indicate wherein its defects lie.

Armstrong begins his paper with a question for the reader of what it means to have a mind. It is well understood that man has the ability to perceive, to think, to feel, and so on, but what does it mean to perceive, to think, and to feel? The answer, he believes, lies in science. Seeing that science is constantly and rapidly gaining ground, he asserts that “...we can give a complete account of man in purely physico-chemical terms” (295?) Pointing out the fact that this view has been accepted by various scientists throughout time, he explains it is the most reliable way to approach the mind-body problem.

In Nagel’s What Is It Like To Be a Bat, issues regarding consciousness are raised. One such issue is the mind-body problem which, as noted by Nagel, does not seem to fit with reductionist theories. That is, reductionist theories aim to explain things (e.g. persons and/or animal experiences) in relation to physical processes (i.e. organisms are just the sum of their physical parts). However, consciousness does not easily cooperate with such theories because it must be given a physical account. In addition, the nature of consciousness is that it is unique to a specific viewpoint (e.g. we can imagine what it would be for us to be a bat, but we cannot experience the mindset of said organism).

Here Nagel sees a direct impact on the mind-body problem: Accessing these facts about what it is to

To help assert his take on the falsely posed take on the subject mind Nagel creates his definition of the subjective character of experience. It is defined as: There is something that it is like to be that organism. He creates this definition to show that it may be possible to know that other organisms have a consciousness – and in turn relate to the mind-body issue. He quotes

Nagel’s thesis begins by invalidating reductionism. A physicalist reductionist’s approach to the mind-body problem is that the mental processes that humans experience as consciousness can be understood through physical processes in the brain and body. Nagel argues against this, and believes that every human and conscious being has its own special subjective character of experience. There is something that it is like for the being to be itself, which cannot be explained through just physicalism, or objective reductionist means. It’s foolish for consciousness to be explained from a reductionist, or physicalist viewpoint. Nagel disputes that every subjective experience is connected with a “single point of view” making it impossible to consider an experience as “objective,” (Nagel, 441). To further illustrate his view, Nagel uses the example of “what it is like to be a bat” to further clear up the distinction between subjective and objective concepts. Bats are assumed to have conscious experience and Nagel uses bats as an example, since they use sensory apparatus that is much different from any other species; echolocation, to see objects and navigate. While its possible to imagine flying,

Our modern understanding of the human mind is much different than it was in the 17th to 19th century, all the results from scientific research on brain studies during the Decade of the Brain. Before, Mind was viewed as a real object but now we realize that people process information somewhere, someplace in the brain. It was a creator of ideas with the personality. Today we realize that it is what the rain does, an expression of neural networks processing information. And indeed computer programs are being built to emulate that process. It is not an ethereal entity that can create memories nor complete pictures on a scratchpad but along neural fibers that reconstruct outlines of pictures. There are various states of consciousness and using language we hypothesize ideas, which are then checked out on the opposite side of the brain against reality. And sometimes the physiology falters and Mind goes berserk. But what that describes is a natural process with information provided from the senses. It is not in communication with higher beings. It is simply engaged in working out problems. Mind is thus a process and in fact dialectics is the very process that engages Mind. Self recognition that Hegel had in his mind was looking for what was outside the

Phenomenology of the Mind by Hegel was one of the difficult Hegel has written. Hegel introduces his readers by describe and define all the dimensions of human experience: knowledge, perception, consciousness and subjectivity, social interactions, culture, history, morality and religion.in the article Hegel looks at the world as it appears to his consciousness. This science of phenomena aims to capture the essence of things in the world. Hegel also inform his readers of the fundamental nature and conditions of human knowledge; Hegel high approach to epistemology was gather from his theme knowledge as motion.1.hegel define absolute as our reality whether apparent or not, the reality of subject and object as the real world is our reality .Absolute and

Common mistake that is often made is presuming the works of something or someone else’s consciousness. In fact, it is impossible to understand someone or something else’s consciousness without being them. In What Is It Like to Be a Bat, Thomas Nagel draws his argument through his representation of the consciousness of a bat, and how any one or anything else is to interpret it. After considering other rodents such as a bird or a rat, he decided that the bat was his primary choice of example because it was the closest mammal to humans while possessing “sensory apparatus” so distinct from humans (Nagel, 220). Nagel established this example to determine the impossibility of knowing what the bat undergoes as a bat because anything that is not a bat simply cannot understand what the bat does, or why it does what it does. Nagel did not drive his answer to be the explanation of understanding the conscious of a human, animal or artificial intelligence, as he finds it impossible. He did however determine the bearing of consciousness among these subjects, but came to the conclusion that it is impossible to know everything about something or someone else that feels and experiences things (Nagel, 220).

In the article, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” author Thomas Nagel provides his own view on the mind-body problem. He begins by stating that consciousness is the reason why the mind-body problem is so controversial