Evaluating Thomas Nagel's What Is It Like To Be A Bat
Nagel is probably most widely known within the field of philosophy of mind as an advocate of the idea that consciousness and subjective experience cannot be reduced to brain activity. In this essay, I will critically evaluate Thomas Nagel’s What is it Like to be a Bat? His paper isn't really about the sensory world of bats; it's more of a critique of reductionist theories of the mind. Nagel argues that consciousness has a subjective aspect, and that understanding other mental states is difficult or impossible for those not able to experience those mental states. I will explain this by introducing the content and by explaining the importance of consciousness as well as the subjective character of experience.
Nagel states that reductionists …show more content…
rarely address consciousness. Because there is no really persuading reduction available, implausible accounts of the mental have been developed to help explain familiar kind of reductions. This has led to reductionists ignoring consciousness. But according to Nagel the mind-body problem is boring without consciousness. Nagel now turns to conscious experience. He finds that some animals and aliens have it – and that there is something it is like to be that organism. He calls this “the subjective character of experience” (Searle would call it the “first-person-ontology” of consciousness) and claims reductionists, functional states, intentional states or behavior analysis has not yet captured it. A physical analysis of the mind must include consciousness, or some idea of it at least, from the start on to work out. He then compares objective and subjective experience. The problem he finds for reducing the latter is that it is connected with a single point of view. To make things less peculiar, Nagel tries this on the example of bats (who are relatively close related to us, but somewhat different nonetheless). Because their perception is so different from ours, Nagel sees every reason to claim that we cannot imagine what it is like to be a bat. Nagel not only tries to imagine what it would be like for him to be a bat. That doesn't hit the point. He wants to know what it is like for the bat itself. Also transforming into a bat, gradually even, would not help for he wants to know it in his present condition.
This is where Nagel points out that we can only make schematic ascriptions that lack the subjective character. Although he had chosen a rather exotic example, he reminds the reader that this also holds between humans. Maybe we will never understand it, but denying the problem is wrong. Nagel explores how it is by all means possible to imagine that there are things humans may never be able to understand. Nagel argues that consciousness is such an important part of the mind-body problem because it is an individual experience that cannot be reduced into anything outside our personal understanding. Physicalism has had success in reductionist theories for many subjects, but Nagel ultimately tries to prove that mental states, and specifically consciousness and experience can only be viewed in a subjective context and not objectively. Reduction is a process by where we ultimately try to lessen our reliance on case-specific experiences and attempt to create a general-case definition. These theories have always tended to work remarkably well with physics, math, and science. Nagel has a point in saying that every organism that experiences consciousness is unique because no other organism shares that experience. In this regard, he claims, “fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism – something it is like for the organism.” (Nagel, 219) This is what Nagel has called the subjective character of experience.
Nagel makes two points about conscious experiences by using examples of robots and animals. For robots, we could program them with certain functional or intentional states, which would affect their behavior (if you can call it that), but they would not be conscious in the same way humans are. He does slightly contradict himself by second-guessing the complexity of these robots. He claims that maybe if the robots were built complex enough, there is little reason to believe they would not develop some type of consciousness even if it were not very similar to our own. This is supported by Nagel’s animal example that many animals have conscious experiences, even with the absence of language or thought. It then follows that robots could be programmed with the ability to have experiences, even though ascribing them consciousness might be a step too far. The physical basis of the mind is difficult to comprehend because we cannot reduce things like emotions very easily because we do not understand how neural activities are translated into mental states very well. Every person has his or her own tastes and so someone who likes cheese would describe its taste very differently than someone who does not like it. Therefore cheese must mean something special for each individual and we cannot push its definition any further than that. The following is what I believe to be one of Nagel`s better arguments perhaps not because of its logical consistency but more so due to its expressiveness. It is an argument that is made stronger by the claim that understanding falls on a continuum where the closer things are to one another, the more `accurate` that observation will be. But perhaps our reduction of phenomenological facts could simply not be technically refined enough to comprehend what is really going on.
“There is a sense in which phenomenological facts are perfectly objective: one person can know or say of another what the quality of the other’s experience is. They are subjective, however, in the sense that even this objective ascription of experience is possibly only for someone sufficiently similar to the object of ascription to be able to adopt his point of view – to understand the ascription in the first person as well as in the third, so to speak.” (Nagel, 222)
So if we look at a banana for example, a Martian would not know what it is when he sees it.
It might look like a random looking lump of matter. If the Martian saw monkeys peeling it to eat, then the Martian will know that it is edible or it is some sort of food source. The point is that by reducing an object to its most simplistic form of experience and understanding, usually gives it a more accurate description of what that thing is. Nagel wants to say that in the case of certain mental states, this reductionist model does not produce the most accurate description of what that thing is. “If the subjective character of experience is fully comprehensible only from one point of view, then any shift to greater objectivity – that is, less attachment to a specific viewpoint – does not take us nearer to the real nature of the phenomenon: it takes us farther away from it” (Nagel, 223) This argument shows inherent difficulty in the reductionist approach with respect to mental states. This argument by Nagel is quite vague about moving towards greater objectivity, especially when nobody has a clue about what we are supposed to be reducing in the first place. Reduction could in fact be coherent; we might simply lack the technology to utilize
it.
Nagel seems to take the assumption that the moment we begin looking at something from an objective third-person view, we are missing the essence of what it is actually like to experience that sensation. This can be seen in the example of pain; I know that when I broke my wrist it was quite sharp and painful, but when I remember that experience I do not really remember that sensation of adrenaline and pain. On the other hand, when I think about being hungry yesterday there is no doubt that what I was experiencing is very similar to what I believe it to be. I think this is what Nagel meant when he said, “It may be more accurate to think of objectivity as a direction in which the understanding can travel.” (Nagel, 222)
The main problem that Nagel sees for the mind-body problem about consciousness is that the old ways of scientific problem solving will not help us in any way. You could describe everything that happens in the head of someone who feels anger, further progress in the neurosciences included. But no description of the objective, physical facts would deal with the subjective character of the experience itself.
For Nagel, then, there are only few things concerning the mind-body problem to be stated safely. One of them is coming to the rescue of physicalism: mental states are states of the body; mental events are physical events. But he then admits that the apparent clarity of terms like “are” are deceiving. They just claim a reference. Without a theoretical framework that makes those references understandable, they still are not well defined. What we hold in our hands is the evidence that mental events have some physical description. But what we lack is the theoretical framework.
References:
Chalmers, D. J. (2002), “What it is like to be a bat?” in Philosophy of Mind, pp. 219-225
Nagel states that reductionists …show more content…
rarely address consciousness. Because there is no really persuading reduction available, implausible accounts of the mental have been developed to help explain familiar kind of reductions. This has led to reductionists ignoring consciousness. But according to Nagel the mind-body problem is boring without consciousness. Nagel now turns to conscious experience. He finds that some animals and aliens have it – and that there is something it is like to be that organism. He calls this “the subjective character of experience” (Searle would call it the “first-person-ontology” of consciousness) and claims reductionists, functional states, intentional states or behavior analysis has not yet captured it. A physical analysis of the mind must include consciousness, or some idea of it at least, from the start on to work out. He then compares objective and subjective experience. The problem he finds for reducing the latter is that it is connected with a single point of view. To make things less peculiar, Nagel tries this on the example of bats (who are relatively close related to us, but somewhat different nonetheless). Because their perception is so different from ours, Nagel sees every reason to claim that we cannot imagine what it is like to be a bat. Nagel not only tries to imagine what it would be like for him to be a bat. That doesn't hit the point. He wants to know what it is like for the bat itself. Also transforming into a bat, gradually even, would not help for he wants to know it in his present condition.
This is where Nagel points out that we can only make schematic ascriptions that lack the subjective character. Although he had chosen a rather exotic example, he reminds the reader that this also holds between humans. Maybe we will never understand it, but denying the problem is wrong. Nagel explores how it is by all means possible to imagine that there are things humans may never be able to understand. Nagel argues that consciousness is such an important part of the mind-body problem because it is an individual experience that cannot be reduced into anything outside our personal understanding. Physicalism has had success in reductionist theories for many subjects, but Nagel ultimately tries to prove that mental states, and specifically consciousness and experience can only be viewed in a subjective context and not objectively. Reduction is a process by where we ultimately try to lessen our reliance on case-specific experiences and attempt to create a general-case definition. These theories have always tended to work remarkably well with physics, math, and science. Nagel has a point in saying that every organism that experiences consciousness is unique because no other organism shares that experience. In this regard, he claims, “fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism – something it is like for the organism.” (Nagel, 219) This is what Nagel has called the subjective character of experience.
Nagel makes two points about conscious experiences by using examples of robots and animals. For robots, we could program them with certain functional or intentional states, which would affect their behavior (if you can call it that), but they would not be conscious in the same way humans are. He does slightly contradict himself by second-guessing the complexity of these robots. He claims that maybe if the robots were built complex enough, there is little reason to believe they would not develop some type of consciousness even if it were not very similar to our own. This is supported by Nagel’s animal example that many animals have conscious experiences, even with the absence of language or thought. It then follows that robots could be programmed with the ability to have experiences, even though ascribing them consciousness might be a step too far. The physical basis of the mind is difficult to comprehend because we cannot reduce things like emotions very easily because we do not understand how neural activities are translated into mental states very well. Every person has his or her own tastes and so someone who likes cheese would describe its taste very differently than someone who does not like it. Therefore cheese must mean something special for each individual and we cannot push its definition any further than that. The following is what I believe to be one of Nagel`s better arguments perhaps not because of its logical consistency but more so due to its expressiveness. It is an argument that is made stronger by the claim that understanding falls on a continuum where the closer things are to one another, the more `accurate` that observation will be. But perhaps our reduction of phenomenological facts could simply not be technically refined enough to comprehend what is really going on.
“There is a sense in which phenomenological facts are perfectly objective: one person can know or say of another what the quality of the other’s experience is. They are subjective, however, in the sense that even this objective ascription of experience is possibly only for someone sufficiently similar to the object of ascription to be able to adopt his point of view – to understand the ascription in the first person as well as in the third, so to speak.” (Nagel, 222)
So if we look at a banana for example, a Martian would not know what it is when he sees it.
It might look like a random looking lump of matter. If the Martian saw monkeys peeling it to eat, then the Martian will know that it is edible or it is some sort of food source. The point is that by reducing an object to its most simplistic form of experience and understanding, usually gives it a more accurate description of what that thing is. Nagel wants to say that in the case of certain mental states, this reductionist model does not produce the most accurate description of what that thing is. “If the subjective character of experience is fully comprehensible only from one point of view, then any shift to greater objectivity – that is, less attachment to a specific viewpoint – does not take us nearer to the real nature of the phenomenon: it takes us farther away from it” (Nagel, 223) This argument shows inherent difficulty in the reductionist approach with respect to mental states. This argument by Nagel is quite vague about moving towards greater objectivity, especially when nobody has a clue about what we are supposed to be reducing in the first place. Reduction could in fact be coherent; we might simply lack the technology to utilize
it.
Nagel seems to take the assumption that the moment we begin looking at something from an objective third-person view, we are missing the essence of what it is actually like to experience that sensation. This can be seen in the example of pain; I know that when I broke my wrist it was quite sharp and painful, but when I remember that experience I do not really remember that sensation of adrenaline and pain. On the other hand, when I think about being hungry yesterday there is no doubt that what I was experiencing is very similar to what I believe it to be. I think this is what Nagel meant when he said, “It may be more accurate to think of objectivity as a direction in which the understanding can travel.” (Nagel, 222)
The main problem that Nagel sees for the mind-body problem about consciousness is that the old ways of scientific problem solving will not help us in any way. You could describe everything that happens in the head of someone who feels anger, further progress in the neurosciences included. But no description of the objective, physical facts would deal with the subjective character of the experience itself.
For Nagel, then, there are only few things concerning the mind-body problem to be stated safely. One of them is coming to the rescue of physicalism: mental states are states of the body; mental events are physical events. But he then admits that the apparent clarity of terms like “are” are deceiving. They just claim a reference. Without a theoretical framework that makes those references understandable, they still are not well defined. What we hold in our hands is the evidence that mental events have some physical description. But what we lack is the theoretical framework.
References:
Chalmers, D. J. (2002), “What it is like to be a bat?” in Philosophy of Mind, pp. 219-225