What Is It Like To Be A Bat?

[Siim Land]

What Is it Like to Be a Bat? is the most widely cited and influential scientific thought experiments about consciousness written by the philosopher Thomas Nagel. 

Basically, he says that  “An organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism - something that it is like for the organism to be itself.” The subjective nature of consciousness, it can't be explained objectively. 

He uses the bats as a metaphor who illustrate his point because they're mammals and their sonar system resembles human vision, both of which are perceptual experiences. Even if we could imagine flying around, using navigation, hanging upside down and do other bat stuff, it would still not be the same as a bat's perspective. If we could metamorphose into bats, we would only be able to experience their behavior but not the mindset, because our brains wouldn't have been wired that way from birth. We wouldn't be bats, but bat-men (I just had to).

What do you guys think? Is our consciousness solely limited to our body and is subjective, or do we share something similar with other sentient beings? I feel like it goes against most of what's written in spiritual texts. But at the same time, it would depend on how you define consciousness. Nagel probably based his claims on the common-sense term.

 

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Remember, reality doesn't work according to "common-sense".

[Siim Land]

True, I guess it all comes down to what you're defining as such, as well as consciousness.