Back

What is it like to
be a bat?

An exploration of the possibilities of feeling like an other

Next

Gender And Sexuality Education Philosophy with Children Reflections on Pedagogy

RHEA KUTHOORE

Oct 10, 2021 · 4 min read

Activity

Each child was handed a kaju katli and was told to pay attention to what the experience of eating the katli felt like. Each of them came up with several adjectives to describe their experiences -- sweet, yummy, 'I want more' and okay-ish were some of the repeated phrases. As several of them described their experience with the adjective 'sweet,' the next question was: Do you experience the sweetness in the same way as the other people, who had also described it as sweet, experience it?

There were confused glances around the room. Besides many children who said, ‘I do not know,' few children shared their reasons for responding with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’.

We then turned to a section from Nagel’s 'What is it like to be a bat?,' to see a different perspective regarding the question.

Resource for reading

I assume we all believe that bats have experience. After all, they are mammals, and there is no more doubt that they have experience than that mice or pigeons or whales have experience. I have chosen bats instead of wasps or flounders because if one travels too far down the phylogenetic tree, people gradually shed their faith that there is experience there at all. Bats, although more closely related to us than those other species.

Now we know that most bats (the microchiropteran, to be precise) perceive the external world primarily by sonar, or echolocation, detecting the reflections, from objects within range, of their own rapid, subtly modulated, high-frequency shrieks. Their brains are designed to correlate the outgoing impulses with the subsequent echoes, and the information thus acquired enables bats to make precise discriminations of distance, size, shape, motion, and texture comparable to those we make by vision. But bat sonar, though clearly a form of perception, is not similar in its operation to any sense that we possess, and there is no reason to suppose that it is subjectively like anything we can experience or imagine.

This appears to create difficulties for the notion of what it is like to be a bat. We must consider whether any method will permit us to extrapolate to the inner life of the bat from our own case, and if not, what alternative methods there may be for understanding the notion.

Our own experience provides the basic material for our imagination, whose range is therefore limited. It will not help to try to imagine that one has webbing on one's arms, which enables one to fly around at dusk and dawn catching insects in one's mouth; that one has very poor vision, and perceives the surrounding world by a system of reflected high-frequency sound signals; and that one spends the day hanging upside down by one's feet in an attic.

In so far as I can imagine this (which is not very far), it tells me only what it would be like for me to behave as a bat behaves. But that is not the question. I want to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat. Yet if I try to imagine this, I am restricted to the resources of my own mind, and those resources are inadequate to the task. I cannot perform it either by imagining additions to my present experience, or by imagining segments gradually subtracted from it, or by imagining some combination of additions, subtractions, and modifications (Nagel).

Back to the Activity

Together, we noted down the important parts of the reading. We continued to wonder: Just as I cannot know what it is like for a bat to be a bat, can I not know what it is like for you to experience sweetness?

At this point, I introduced the concept of Qualia -- the qualitative aspects of our experiences that are subjective, intrinsic, private and directly accessible to the experiencer. We discussed other examples to elucidate the idea of Qualia -- feeling pain, experiencing heat and seeing colours.

Relevance

The idea of qualia is interesting because, throughout our lives, we seek to understand one another. We communicate information about ourselves and expect other people to understand our feelings. Rarely do we pause to think: How much of my feelings can the other person understand, to begin with? The idea of Qualia provokes us to think about this question.
‍
Furthermore, the idea of Qualia highlights the limits of 'stepping into another person's shoes' and challenges specific conceptions of empathy. Does Qualia have the potential to make me more compassionate by propelling me to pay heed to the fact that I can never fully understand what it feels like for you to be you?

Reflection

I believe that the idea of qualia is useful because it deviates from an anthropocentric and ego-centric point of view that assumes that all species and all human experiences are alike in certain ways. I think there is value in admitting that a person does not understand another person's experience, even though they both may have been in a similar situation. Empathy, understood through this lens, would arise from 'the impossibility of stepping into another person's shoes'.
‍

In many quarrels, people say to one another, ‘Forget it. You will not understand my feelings.’ Although there are many reasons for feeling mis-understood or not being understood at all, taking into consideration the idea that our subjective experiences are unique may benefit how we relate to one another, to begin with.

RHEA KUTHOORE is an educator who is passionate about facilitating philosophical and feminist thinking amongst young people.

Thinking Rhizomatically

Heading

Heading

Heading

Heading

Heading

Heading

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.

Thank you! Your submission has been received!

Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content. The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content. The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content. The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content. The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

This is an h2 heading inside rich text

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.