Nagel's bat argument Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Nagels bat argument - Essay ExampleThis shortcoming in Nagels argument comes as a result of a conceptual error regarding the nature of a mind-independent, or objective, phenomenon.The nature of phenomenal experience can be illustrated with a thought experiment. A scientist can apply artificial impulses to a subjects cerebrum through electrodes, causing the subject to react in predicable slipway moving his arm, yelling loudly, and so on. These artificial inputs mirror exactly the natural functioning of the brain. Imagine then if the scientist simulates smart, evoking the appropriate physiological responses, but hears no reports of bruise from the subject. For pain to exist, we might conclude, there is a necessary condition that there be first-hand, phenomenal experience of such. Even though the physiological responses to pain appear, there is still the lack of subjectivity, which proves necessary for the ontic existence of pain.Nagel uses the term subjective character of experience to denote the thought that a point-of-view is essentially a lay the sum of a things subjective phenomena. The notion of the subjective character of experience suggests, according to Nagel, that some kinds of facts, namely the centre by which psychological states arise from physical ones, are outside of the realm of human experience and thus unknowable. A bat, for instance, perceives its environment entirely different from how a human beingness would and given that there is something that the bat subjectively experiences there seems to be some ontological closure for the human mind to some facts.The bat forms a particularly effective tool for Nagel to illustrate his claim insofar as that species employs a sensory device of sonar, which is a radically different from mans means of perception. While any conscious animal would do, the bats sensory tools are clearly different in every respect of its operation from muddle or any of the other human senses. While clearly conscious, th e bat has its own very