What it Is like to be a bat is a famous philosophical paper written by Thomas Nagel in 1974, in

which he argues that the reductionist point of view won’t help us understand the relation
between mind and body and also it neglects to provide a satisfied explanation of consciousness.
He criticizes reductionists because in his opinion, they often use analogies to explain the mind-
body connection, but without considering the matter of consciousness.

Conscious experience

He examines this problem of consciousness.by investigating the conscious experience of an

organism, an experience that is ignored by reductionists. Nagel says that conscious experience
is a widespread phenomenon, which is happening at many levels of animal life, but it is difficult
to say what proves its existence. He states that this conscious experience, however minimal, is
what determines the way of being of the organism.

According to him:“fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states If and only if there is
something that it is to be that organism. If physicalism is to be defended, the phenomenological
features must themselves be given a physical account but when we examine their subjective
nature, it seems that such a result is impossible. Therefore, in Nagel’s view, there is no doubt
that every subjective phenomenon is essentially connected with the single point of view and it
seems inevitable that an objective physical theory will abandon that point of view.

Then Thomas Nagel compares the relationship between the subjective and the objective, taking
as an example something that clearly shows the divergence between the two types of
conception: "what is it like to be a bat?". He chooses bats to illustrate this problem because
they are relatively related to us, but also different at the same time (eg sonar). Bats have a very
weak visual sense, they perceive the world with the help of sonar or echolocation, detecting the
reflections of objects in space with the help of high frequency sounds. What is important in this
example is that people have no idea what it is like to have this sense, and this makes it difficult
for us to understand how to be a bat. Because their perception is so different from ours, Nagel
argues that we can't imagine what it's like to be a bat.

Even if we managed to turn into bats, we still could not imagine what our experiences would
look like in a future stage of our person. This is one of the essential problems that Nagel points
out: consciousness is specific to each species and therefore incomprehensible to other species,
and no one else will be able to duplicate their consciousness in a computer, car, or anything
other than it.
A certain objectivity is possible

Another problem he addresses is that some bodies have certain points of view. Here he states
that a certain objectivity is possible. The fact that we adopt other points of view is part of
everyday life, but this is only possible for organisms that are similar enough. The more different
you are, , the less you can expect this test to succeed, we have the relevant point of view as far
as we are concerned, but we will have as many difficulties in correctly understanding our own
experience if we approach it from another perspective, as if we were trying to understand
other species without taking their point of view.

About physicalism

Here Nagel sees a direct impact on the mind-body problem

Nagel tells us: If mental processes are indeed physical processes then there is something that it
is like essentially to undergo certain physical processes ; what it is for such a case remains a
mystery ; Despite of this, it would be a mistake to conclude that physicalism must false Nagel
also says how physicalism isn't necessarily false. When you say X is Y we seems to understand
how that can be truth but that’s because of the conceptual/theoretical background that we
have; that is not conveyed by is alone; for example, if you tell someone that all matter is
energy, he knows what the word IS means but he won’t be likely to form a conception of what
makes this claim true. Only theoretical background may lead us to such conclusions; When you
say X is Y, sufficient theoretical framework may be supplied to enable us to understand it. It’s
the same when you declare a mental event is a physical event, something more than the
knowledge of what the word is is required; Strangely enough, we may have evidence for the
truth of something we cannot really understand.

Conclusion

In closing, Nagel proposes that we take subjective experiences and try to develop an objective
phenomenon not dependent on empathy or the imagination. Its goal would be to describe, at
least in part, the subjective nature of experiences in a comprehensible form to those
incomprehensible. The problem with this lies in removing the subjectivity. He uses the example
of describing to a blind person from birth what it was like to see.