more from Daniel C. Dennett

Single Idea 7391

[catalogued under 15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 3. Privacy]

Full Idea

There is at least a lot that we can know about what it is like to be a bat, and Nagel has not given us a reason to believe there is anything interesting or theoretically important that is inaccessible to us.

Gist of Idea

We can know a lot of what it is like to be a bat, and nothing important is unknown

Source

Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 14.2)

Book Reference

Dennett,Daniel C.: 'Consciousness Explained' [Penguin 1993], p.442


A Reaction

I agree. If you really wanted to identify with the phenomenology of bathood, you could spend a lot of time in underground caves whistling with your torch turned off. I can't, of course, be a bat, but then I can't be my self of yesterday.