Why physical facts about a brain cannot explain the feeling of being.
In short: Can you truly understand an experience without living it? Thomas Nagel explores why knowing every biological detail of a bat's brain still fails to capture the subjective reality of its existence.
Nagel uses the bat as a primary example to challenge reductionist views of consciousness. He argues that even if we possessed complete objective knowledge of a bat’s neurobiology and echolocation mechanics, we would still lack the first-person experience of what it actually feels like to be one.
This thought experiment highlights a fundamental gap in physicalism: the distinction between objective data and subjective sentience. It suggests that consciousness possesses a unique quality that cannot be fully captured by purely physical descriptions.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Why Can't We Know What It's Like to Be a Bat? | Thomas Nagel
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