3 ms·
I know what it's like to be a bat. I don't have anqualia, the inability to imaginatively summon what an experience is like. In other words, I have the ability
by kelseyfrog 5mo ago
I know what it's like to be a bat.
I don't have anqualia, the inability to imaginatively summon what an experience is like. In other words, I have the ability to imagine what an experience is like. Do others not have this?
- bobson381 5mo agoYou know what it would be like for you to imagine being a bat, but you don't know how it feels for a bat to be a bat, as "you" aren't.
- kelseyfrog 5mo agoI dont think you can know that unless you know what it's like to be me.
- bobson381 5mo agoin that case, hello, bat!
- kelseyfrog 5mo agoHi, finally someone believes me! :)
- justonceokay 5mo agoHow do you justify that your intuition about what echolocation is like tracks with what a bat actually feels?
- satvikpendem 5mo agoYou only pretend to know, that's not true knowledge.
- kelseyfrog 5mo agoHow do you know that? Do you know what it's like to be me?
- fredoliveira 5mo agoThey can make the claim to know what it is like to be you as much as you can make the claim that you know what it is like to be a bat.
- kelseyfrog 5mo agoI will know the difference. That's enough for me.
- satvikpendem 5mo agoHow will you know the difference unless you are a bat? You cannot.
- kelseyfrog 5mo agoI can. You don't have access to my subjective experience to be able to claim I don't.
- satvikpendem 5mo agoYou can't because you cannot become a bat, so thinking you can is just that, thought. I don't need your subjective experience to know.
- kelseyfrog 5mo agoAre you claiming you know what it is like to be me? You can't know about the bat thing unless you know what it is like to be me.
- danlitt 5mo agoEveryone can imagine some experiences. No-one can imagine every experience. Why are you so sure you know what it's like to be a bat? Do you know how a bat works, how its brain generates sensations, how different sensory organs than yours give rise to subjective experience? What justification do you have, apart from "I reckon I can imagine it"?
- robotresearcher 5mo agoI don’t know those things about myself so they can’t be necessary.
- jubilanti 5mo agoAlmost everyone has the capacity for intersubjective imagination or empathy. But part of what it's like to be a bat is to NOT have human level cognition and knowledge, to have grown up with only memories from the bat world, not the human world. When you imagine what it is like to be a bat, you can exit that imagination at any time. You probably have a theoretical and applied knowledge of sonar from human science and technology. Part of what it means to be a bat is that you don't have this. Paradoxically, human scientists probably know a lot more about how bats navigate the world than bats do, but part of what it means to be a bat is navigating the world from only what is accessible to the bat world. It is kind of like how a rich trust fund kid can give away all their wealth, change their name, disown all their family and social connections, take a vow of poverty, take so many drugs that they forget everything they learned, and go live on the streets -- but they will never know what it is like to be born into poverty.
- themafia 5mo agoDo Bats reminisce about the past? How far ahead do Bats plan their next action? Can a Bat be jealous?
- kelseyfrog 4mo agoGreat questions, unfortunately being like a bat is a qualia and just as I cannot describe the qualia of redness, I can only describe the qualia of batness as a thing in itself.