Dualism: What Is It Like To Be A Bat, By Thomas Nagel

A way to argue that the mind is just the brain would be to claim that the mind and brain are connected in some way. Injury or harm to the brain can affect cognitive abilities and personality. Changes in brain chemistry can do the same as well. The reason our minds do not seem physical to us is because we know so little of the processes inside our brains. Materialism is the view that existence is explainable only in material or physical terms, with no regard for or of the spirit and consciousness. This would obviously rely on the claim that our mind is our brain or that the brain is our mind. The view known as Dualism argues against this belief. Dualism is the view that there are two types of reality that exist; material (physical) and immaterial

Mostly because, it has been difficult to define and understand. What Is It Like To Be A Bat is a critique of the reductionist theories regarding the mind. Thomas Nagel argues that consciousness has a subjective aspect and that understanding other mental states can be difficult or impossible for those who are unable to experience such mental states. I personally agree with Nagel on his stance as well as his refute to reductionism. Reductionism is the philosophical view that a complex system is just the composition of its parts. I feel such a view is outdated and doesn't accurately grasp the magnitude of such a discussion regarding something as complex as consciousness. As already stated regarding science and its attempt to discern whether or not the mind and the brain are the same or different, we have been unsuccessful at explaining and understanding consciousness, especially when attempted through a physical sense. Even if we changed how we look and how we acted, like a bat for example, we would still not change the fundamental structure of being human, and in turn would still not know how it truly is to be a bat. Even if one could actually change into a bat, you would not know what it was like until that actually happened. For Nagel, the objective perspective is invalid, because humans are limited to just subjective experience. He wants us to form an 'objective phenomenology' that does not rely solely on feeling or imagination. Rather, be capable of describing the subjective character of experience in such a way so that it could be understood by beings who cannot have such