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What is it like to be a bat?

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Re: What is it like to be a bat?

#251

Post by jibal »

goatlover wrote: post #205
jibal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that the phrase "what it's like" (in this philosophical sense) is coherent. When people like Nagel or Chalmers are asked to explain it, they liken it to other incoherent assertions.

It just means the experience of sensation. You're conscious of a purple object, the smell of brewed coffee, the feeling of a sharp pain, you have a resurfaced memory of a deceased relative, you visualize the beach, you dream of being unprepared for a test, You daydream while driving down a long road, you feel affection seeing a friend, you hear your internal dialog about the boss. There's nothing incoherent here, the…

As I said, the phrase gets described in terms of other incoherent phrases ... it's entirely circular.

Re: What is it like to be a bat?

#252

Post by goatlover »

jibal wrote: post #251
goatlover wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just means the experience of sensation. You're conscious of a purple object, the smell of brewed coffee, the feeling of a sharp pain, you have a resurfaced memory of a deceased relative, you visualize the beach, you dream of being unprepared for a test, You daydream while driving down a long road, you feel affection seeing a friend, you hear your internal dialog about the boss. There's nothing incoherent here, the…

As I said, the phrase gets described in terms of other incoherent phrases ... it's entirely circular.

I explained how it's not. Focusing on linguistics of the words obscures the actual issue, which is how we experience the world through our sensory modalities.

Re: What is it like to be a bat?

#253

Post by goatlover »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #210
goatlover wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qualia is the philosophical term for subjective sensations and feelings. It's what our experiences consist of. Why must a concept be empirical and objective? Logical positivism is flawed because the principle of verification cannot be verified. Nagel's paper deals with the fundamental divide between subjectivity and objectivity. That's the point of the bat example. We know there are animals that have sensory capabili…

>Logical positivism is flawed because the principle of verification cannot be verified. Why not? It works, thus it verifies itself.

It's not working if it excludes subjective experience by definition. Makes it useless for the consciousness debate.

Re: What is it like to be a bat?

#254

Post by bondarchuk »

glenstein wrote: post #83
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you're falling into a purely linguistic trap. In other languages we wouldn't even use the word "like" in this kind of constructions, that's an English thing because other wordings sound awkward, but I don't think it entails comparison. In translations to Spanish, the article is titled "¿Qué se siente ser un murciélago?", literal word by word translation "What is felt being a bat?" In French, "Quel effet cel…

Wholeheartedly agree. I want to credit the GP one way, which is that the category they're identifying is real, namely of frivolous or circular comparisons. This just isn't one of those. It's a turn of phrase that's emphatic about the felt quality of qualitative experience. And in I think it's quite a good one, because in English it has just the right amount of cross-sections of connotation that it brings out this bei…

>It's a turn of phrase that's emphatic about the felt quality of qualitative experience. And in I think it's quite a good one, because in English it has just the right amount of cross-sections of connotation that it brings out this being felt quality that everyone reading it seems to understand.

I think you hit the nail on the head here. It's an effective way to codify a metaphysical intuition held by many people. That it would in any way constitute a proof for this intuition of course does not follow at all.

Re: What is it like to be a bat?

#255

Post by GoblinSlayer »

goatlover wrote: post #253
GoblinSlayer wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Logical positivism is flawed because the principle of verification cannot be verified. Why not? It works, thus it verifies itself.

It's not working if it excludes subjective experience by definition. Makes it useless for the consciousness debate.

It doesn't exclude subjective experience.

Re: What is it like to be a bat?

#256

Post by bondarchuk »

antonvs wrote: post #139
bondarchuk wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no distinction: the idea that there is a distinction rests on a linguistic confusion. The sentence "something it is like to be a bat" tries, as it were, to split the concept of "being a bat" in two, then makes us wonder about the difference between the two halves. I reject that we have to answer for any such difference, when we can show that the two halves are actually the same thing. It's a grammatical tric…

I agree with the other reply that you're overthinking this. If you claim there's no distinction, then in terms of the meaning Nagel is trying to convey, you're claiming there's no distinction that sets you apart from a game of Tetris in terms of consciousness. That's where my first reply to you was coming from: if you believe the distinction Nagel is trying to convey doesn't exist, that's tantamount to saying that co…

But there are many things that set me apart from a game of Tetris! For example, I'm not made up of falling puzzle pieces, I enjoy drinking a cup of coffee every now and then, I was not invented by Alexey Pajitnov in 1985... The difference between an unconscious and a conscious thing could be a difference of this order, which does not at all amount to saying that consciousness does not exist.

Re: What is it like to be a bat?

#257

Post by [deleted] »

jibal wrote: post #190
glenstein wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoheartedly agree. I think what they're stressing though if I'm understanding correctly, is we do kind of start in a Cartesian space, and branch out via inferences to the presumption of an external world. And, from a certain philosophical perspective, one could point to that and insist that at any moment that connection could be the weak link that brings all of epistemology crashing down. We could get unhooked from…

See their comment just above where they say "I'm afraid the physicalist position is absolutely impossible." ... it's the worst argued rubbish imaginable.

[deleted]

Re: What is it like to be a bat?

#258

Post by ars »

rcxdude wrote: post #233
ars wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consciousness is awareness of yourself, and then the ability to look at yourself and decide to make a change. Someone conscious is able to choose how they want to behave and then behave that way. For example I can choose to be kind or mean. I can choose to learn to skate or I choose not to. So free will and consciousness are strongly linked. I have seen zero evidence that any other being other than humans can do this…

I don't think this matches which most people's definition of consciousness. The ability to decide rarely enters into such conversations.

If you can't do anything with your self awareness it's equivalent to not having it.

What's the distinction between knowing I exist, but all my actions are pre-programmed vs not knowing I exist? You're essentially describing a detached observer, who watches their own body do stuff without influencing it.

The whole point of being conscious is being aware of yourself, and then using that awareness to direct your actions.

I had no idea people even had another definition, I can't figure out how else you could even define it.

Re: What is it like to be a bat?

#259

Post by GoblinSlayer »

tooheavy wrote: post #194

Materialism (perhaps physicalism as well) appears to be on shaky ground to me - it does not tell me 'why' I have the first person experience that I have, why I experience and embody the matter that is my person or being, a specific entity. Another way to look at it is to say there doesn't appear to be a region in the brain that defines why I experience the brain, that or this specific brain. From this perspective, I…

In this world "why" and "how" are synonyms. Asking why experience happens is equivalent to asking how experience happens.

Re: What is it like to be a bat?

#260

Post by ars »

scott_w wrote: post #218
ars wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are simultaneously claiming you can prove an animal made a choice, but I didn't? That's a contradiction. In any case, a mirror test is a test of recognizing self, it does not indicate anything in terms of self awareness. And I chose to fast for 5 days because I wanted to. Nothing forced me, it was a free choice. I simply thought about it and decided to do it, there were no pro's or con's pushing me in either dire…

> Some animals show choices They said animals show choices , they did not claim to prove animals made a choice. The point is that you also cannot prove you made a choice, only that you do things that show you may have made a choice. It's a fine, but important, distinction.

Did I, or did I not, have the option to fast, or not to fast?

Did I then pick one? How is that not proof of a choice? Who or what else made that choice if not me?

If you poke me with a needle, I move, that is not a choice because it's a forced choice, that's essentially what animals do, all their choices are forced.

That's also what free will is, free will is not a choice between a good and bad options - that's not a choice. Free will is picking between two options that are equal, and yet different (i.e. not something where before options are more or less the same, like go left or right more or less randomly).

Free will is only rarely exercised in life, most choices are forced or random.

> They said animals show choices

Given what I wrote, do they actually show choices? Or do they just pick between good/bad or two equal options?

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