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In 1974 the philosopher Thomas Nagel asked what it is like to be a bat. Science can explain how a bat finds its way by echoes, yet not how that world feels to the bat. Nagel argued that any outside description leaves out the experience of being the creature. Even picturing ourselves with wings, we only picture a human's experience.

Thomas Nagel

PhilosophyScienceMind

The story behind the card

Thomas Nagel is an American philosopher, and 'What Is It Like to Be a Bat?' is one of the most widely read essays in the philosophy of mind. He chose bats because echolocation, finding objects by the echoes of their own calls, is a sense humans do not have. The essay shaped later debate over whether consciousness can be fully explained in physical terms, a puzzle the philosopher David Chalmers named 'the hard problem of consciousness' in the 1990s.

Türkçe oku
Filozof Thomas Nagel 1974'te şunu sordu: Yarasa olmak nasıl bir şeydir? Bilim, yarasanın yankılarla nasıl yön bulduğunu açıklayabilir, ama o dünyanın yarasaya nasıl geldiğini söyleyemez. Nagel'e göre dışarıdan yapılan hiçbir tarif, o canlı olmanın deneyimini içermez. Kendimizi kanatlı hayal etsek bile, hayal ettiğimiz yine bir insanın deneyimidir.

Thomas Nagel Amerikalı bir filozoftur. “Yarasa Olmak Nasıl Bir Şeydir?” (What Is It Like to Be a Bat?) adlı makalesi, zihin felsefesinde en çok okunan metinlerden biridir. Yarasayı seçmesinin nedeni, yankıyla yön bulmanın, yani kendi çıkardığı seslerin yankısından nesnelerin yerini anlamanın, insanda karşılığı olmayan bir duyu olmasıdır. Makale, bilincin fiziksel terimlerle tamamen açıklanıp açıklanamayacağı tartışmasını derinden etkiledi. Filozof David Chalmers 1990'larda bu soruna “bilincin zor problemi” adını verdi.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: What Is It Like to Be a Bat?
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