Why science cannot fully explain what it is like to be a bat
In short: We can map every neuron in a brain, yet we remain locked out of the internal lives of others. This gap between objective data and first-person feeling is the heart of the debate over the subjective character of experience.
In his landmark 1974 essay, "What Is It and Like to Be a Bat?", philosopher Thomas Nagel argued that consciousness possesses a unique, first-person aspect that escapes purely physical descriptions. While science can document the functional mechanics of an organism—such as how a bat uses echolocation to navigate—it cannot capture the internal essence of the experience itself. This concept, known as the subjective character of experience, suggests that every conscious organism has a unique point of view that is inaccessible to external observers. This limitation serves as a powerful refutation of reductionism, demonstrating that the mind cannot be simplified into mere physical operations of the body. Because each species possesses its own unique perspective, no other organism can ever truly gather firsthand experience of another's internal world.
To understand this, researchers often distinguish between two dimensions of consciousness. The "qualitative character" refers to the specific, fine-grained details of a sensation, such as the "reddish" hue of a diskette case or the sweetness of a smell. In contrast, the "subjective character" (or "for-me-ness") is the more general, invariant fact that there is something at all that the experience feels like to the subject. Kriegel (2009) describes this relationship as a difference between a determinable and its various determinates. For example, specific sensations like the smell of wet dog fur or the feeling of pins and needles serve as particular instances of this broader phenomenon.
Recent philosophical debates, involving thinkers like Levine (2001) and Kriegel (2009), have attempted to further refine these distinctions. Some scholars suggest that the confusion in current consciousness studies stems from conflating different layers of self-awareness, such as "for-me-ness," "me-ness," and "mineness." While these concepts are often used interchangeably, evidence from clinical cases suggests they may represent distinct properties of how we inhabit our own minds. Scholars have used a wide variety of terminology to describe this phenomenon, ranging from 'me-ishness' to 'sense of ownership.' These labels attempt to capture the way experiences are attached to a specific self.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: I Me Mine: on a Confusion Concerning the Subjective Character of Experience
- Also: Subjective character of experience
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