What Is It Like to Be a Bat?

“Our own experience provides the basic material for our imagination, whose range is therefore limited.”

Nagel establishes the limitations of our understanding and empathy. Since imagination is rooted in our experiences, he argues that we cannot fully comprehend experiences vastly different from our own. Nagel suggests that we cannot truly know what being a bat is like because our experiences are so different.

“In so far as I can imagine this (which is not very far), it tells me only what it would be like for me to behave as a bat behaves.”

Nagel emphasizes the difference between imagining an experience and having an experience. While we may be able to mimic the behavior of a bat, we cannot know what it is like to see and be in the world as a bat. This distinction highlights the central thesis of Nagel’s essay— that there is a subjective aspect to experience that cannot be objectively analyzed or understood.

“It is difficult to understand what could be meant by the objective character of an experience, apart from the particular point of view from which its subject apprehends it.”

This quote underscores Nagel’s critique of reductionist approaches to understanding consciousness. Nagel suggests that removing the subjective viewpoint from experience strips it of its essence, challenging the philosophical notion that experience can be completely understood objectively.