Thomas Nagel Analysis

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The essay of Thomas Nagel was based on the importance of consciousness as well as the subjective character of experience. Nagel makes some very good points in his essay, What it is like to be a bat? Explaining that we experience everything as subjective and not objective. Having analyzed the essay from Nagel, I have decided that he does have a sound argument which states that every organism that experiences consciousness will experience it in its own way. Nagel also talks about the mind-body problem, discovered by Rene Descartes, which is about the physical body interacting with the nonphysical mind that also ties in with consciousness because it is based on the individuals own understanding. Although Nagel points out that we can assume or try and understand a situation through our own personal understanding, it will never be the same as actually being the person or thing experiencing something for itself. So in other words, Nagel believes that there are some experiences which are completely beyond human understanding.
Nagel argues that consciousness is the reason that each of us differ in our views or perspectives on how we take in everything we experience. Nagel points out that consciousness and experience can only be viewed in a subjective context is based on personal opinions, interpretations, points of view, emotions and judgment and not Objective, which is fact-based, measureable and observable. In other words, He is saying that every organism that experiences consciousness is unique because no other organism shares that experience. He continues to explain, an organism has conscious mental states if there is something that it is like to be that organism, which Nagel has called the subjective character of experience. Th...

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...le, since I do not know what it is like to be another human being, such as a family member or a friend, but I do know what it is like to be me, then do I really know what it is like to be "human" ? Assuming that human accounts for all of mankind.
In conclusion, I believe that Nagel makes a sound argument about subjective character and that every species experiences everything differently. And that is because of their own consciousness having gone through different experiences and interpreting everything in its own way. And that is the main reason for the mind body problem, which has not been solved even till this day. So no matter how much we may hear the same thing, see the same thing, or go through the same process as the person next to us, the way we take in the experiences based on our own perspective will never be the same as any other person or organism.

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