You should probably read the essay: http://organizations.utep.edu/Portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf
Knowing what it is like to be your identical twin brother is no more possible than knowing what it is like to be a bat. You can imagine to a certain extent what it would be like for *you* to be a bat or to be your identical twin brother, but you cannot know what it is like for a *bat* to be a bat, nor what it is like for your identical twin brother to be your identical twin brother. As far as Batman is concerned, there is nothing that it is like for Batman to be Batman, since he doesn't exist. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophaneros Anartaxius" <anartaxius@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <authfriend@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <authfriend@> wrote: > > (snip) > > > Well, sorta. The focus isn't so much on what consciousness > > > is in an experiential sense, but rather on how it got there. > > > (Nagel covered the experiential > > > > Ooops, never finished the sentence. I meant to refer to his > > seminal essay "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" He's written > > other books and articles on the experiential angle as well. > > > I was thinking this morning (napping on the park bench?) that probably you > would agree that there are such things as bats. This of course is the > creature to which Nagel's paper refers. Bats exist. But what would it be like > to be Batman? Batman is a fictional character. It does not appear to exist in > the same way the animal we call a bat exists. > > Yet, even if it fails, we can kind of imagine what it might be like to be a > bat (being small, not seeing very well, but really good with echo locations > and flying, etc.), and because we are human, we might even be able to even > more plausibly imagine what it might be like to be Batman, even though Batman > is not real. One could dress up with a cowl (which probably restricts vision > to some extent) and a cape and leap off a building, or perhaps, a park bench. > If you ever visited a mansion, perhaps one could realise to some extent what > it would be like to be the alter ego of Batman, Bruce Wayne. > > I would not know, philosophically, how to discern verbally the difference > here between the attempt to emulate a bat and a fictional character. But what > does it say about reality if it is more likely one can know, can experience, > what it would be like to be something that does not exist than to be like > something that does? > > Suppose I went to Grand Central Terminal in New York City, and watch > shoeshine guys polishing the shoes of businessmen (there are a few stands > like that there). Now I have never done this kind of work. But suppose I > decided to learn that trade, and learned, as an apprentice, how to ply that > trade and become a shoeshine boy (although in my case it would be a shoeshine > senior)? Now I would know what it is like. > > But that is just activities. Is there a difference in what it is to be like a > certain person which one is not, and what it is like to engage in a > particular activity that has specific characteristics which one has never > done? Both shoeshine guys and I are human (though some doubt the latter). A > Batman, though fictional, is based on humanness. A bat is not human. A bat is > a mammal. But I am a mammal too. So do I know something about what it is like > to be a bat because I am a mammal? Or does the fact the attribution 'mammal' > being applied to the bat and me is simply definitional obscure some essential > reality that makes my understanding of 'batness' impossible? >
