What’s it like to be a bat?
Thomas Nagel’s paper published in 1974 posed the question above and was part of an ongoing exploration into the nature and causes of consciousness. Early iterations of this debate often revolved around challenging Descartes’ dualist view of physical body and immaterial soul or spirit, with the materialist or physicalist champion Daniel Dennett picking up the baton from Gilbert Ryle.
However in recent times there have been a proliferation of different views emerging, which have redefined and reframed the debate. Sir Roger Penrose sees consciousness as the product of quantum activity in the micro tubules of the brain, Panpsychists like Philip Goff have revived an ancient idea that all matter even at its most basic level contains elements of consciousness, Giulio Tononi subscribes to the idea of Integrated Information Theory, whilst Anil Seth believes our brains are constantly reevaluating what our senses receive based on previous experiences and best-guess predictions. David Chalmers may feel all the above have not solved his famous Hard Problem of consciousness. And where does AI fit into all this? (Chalmers has his own thoughts in his recent book Reality +)
These are some of the ideas being explored by members of the Lower Sixth Symposium in their lunchtime meetings. This group, open to all Sixth Formers, seeks to consider some significant topics over a period of several weeks and touching on a wide variety of different disciplines.
As for the bat, Nagel feels that if we can imagine what it is like to be one, then the bat has consciousness; furthermore this could apply as a test for whether any number of things may have consciousness. What’s it like to be a plant? Or a table?
