Summary Of What Is It Like To Be A Bat By Thomas Nagel

In this paper I will explain how Nagel uses his master argument premise to defend an anti-physicalist approach that in order to experience qualia it can only be done through a subjective point of view. Furthermore, he states differences between subjective and objective points of view, adding on to this he also suggests that by attempting to move towards objectiveness one must take a step back from subjectiveness.

In his widely acclaimed book “What is it like to be a bat?” Thomas Nagel takes on a rather anti-physicalist approach by using two examples to demonstrate that physicalism cannot explain the nature of mental state-consciousness. He describes the difference between an subjective and objective point of view. To do this he provides us with two examples: How a blind martian can understand the nature of phenomena, and how a human can know everything there is to know about a bat but they will never truly know what it is like to be a bat from a subjective point of view. Similarly, piggybacking off the idea that philosophical zombies are physically living humans that are brain dead/lacking mental life, Nagel proposes a relatively similar idea. He brings down the idea that consciousness is physical: That the consciousness of a

philosophical zombie derives from the brain. We know this is not true because the zombie is not conscious. Using this example we can see that this too promotes the idea that experience is a subjective point of view. The zombie could forge what it is like to be mentally be alive but never experience it first hand in a subjective manner because he is not mentally alive. Likewise a person that is mentally alive could forget that they are a philosophical zombie, but could never really experience that subjectively. All in all, a physicalist in hopes of reducing this phenomenon in an objective point of view would only come to realize that ,in this scenario of consciousness, could only be reduced to a very well put together zombie.
Another example that defends the anti-physicalist approach is the Jackson argument. In this argument Jackson states “if physicalism is true, then all the mental states of John, even his qualia-states, will be physical.” Although Mary has never seen colors before, and she claims to have learned every fact about John seeing red, she could not have experienced this through a subjective point of view therefore she does not know what it is like to see the color red. Even if she were to try and explain what the qualia behind seeing the color red might be like though an objective point of view. Unfortunately for them, John’s mental states, even his qualia are not physical, strengthe the argument that physicalism is false.
In regards to Hill, he hoped to “explain how it is possible to seem to be able to conceive of pain without its corresponding brain state, but without impugning the necessity of the identity to pain and its physical state.” On the side of the coin, in his blind martian example, Nagel suggests that by attempting to move towards objectiveness one must take a step back from subjectiveness. A blind martian can understand the nature of phenomena, because “the nature of phenomena is in the structure and function” it is not understood based off what we know (third person point of view). In the case of consciousness, implying that it is subjective, makes the
ground to try and explain it scientifically rather challenging ultimately geting us farther away from its real nature. In other words, trying to explain to the blind martian that a rainbow consists of the broad range of colors in the ROYGBIV spectrum from a third person point of view won’t help. Instead, it is something that will consequently bring the process of explaining a step back from subjectiveness.
Furthermore he was an anti-physicalist and as an anti-physicalist he believed that consciousness could not be physically explained. That if physicalism were to be true, qualia or “phenomenological features” need to be given a physical characteristic, this is not possible. Even though it may seem that this is impossible, it is connected with one point of view: subjective point of view. To put this into a clearer understanding imagine your pet dog lucky eating his daily meal of canned food in the morning, right after he wakes up. A behaviorist would say his action of eating the canned food demonstrates that he is hungry. An identity theorist would say that the reason behind lucky eating his canned food is because his stomach is rumbling, physically signaling to himself that he needs to eat. A functionalist would say that luckys’ hunger derives from an input his stomach rumbling, an output which in this case would be lucky feeling the pain from starvation, and the mental state that he himself is hungry which leads him to eating the canned food.
Using this same logical explanation is how Nagel views the idea of what it is like to be a bat. That one could not possibly understand or know what it is truly like to be a bat through an objective lens, but rather can only be experienced through subjective means. Essentially you could get “on all fours” and eat canned food similar to lucky, and claim that you know everything there is to know about being lucky. however, using Nagels anti-physicalist approach we can conclude that one could not possibly understand what it is like to be lucky through an objective point of view, solely through a subjective point of view.
Overall, Nagel does not conclude that physicalism is false, but instead suggests that we do not have an idea on how it could be otherwise.

Although Nagel does not keep a strong stance in his argument, he does well in going against physicalism, but he does do so in its entirety. He partially defends his viewpoint, not only this but also leaves the floor open for the physicalist to object at any point in time, given that no discoveries against consciousness being able to be explained through a objective point of view. I believe that Nagel purposely chose to play a smart card, thereafter suggesting this because we have not been able to reduce consciousness to purely physical characteristics as we can now in time for subjective

basis.