What Is It Like to Be a Bat? (1974) [pdf]
Not sure why this ended up on HN today, but this is a classic text read in many introductory courses focused on philosophy of mind and consciousness.<p>I quite like the paper. I once wrote a follow-up paper about how one might interpret it now that we know about neuroplasticity. That was fun to ponder.<p>I looked at a specific experiment where researchers managed to map visual impulses from a camera to an electrode &quot;pixel grid&quot; physically placed on the tongue, such that the visual inputs were &quot;mapped&quot; to corresponding locations on your tongue. It was shown, in the research, that people could catch balls thrown at them blindfolded using this setup, and after a relatively short period of sensory adjustment. They would actually &quot;see with their tongue&quot;.<p>You can read about that research in this 2003 article from Discover Magazine:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;discovermagazine.com&#x2F;2003&#x2F;jun&#x2F;feattongue" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;discovermagazine.com&#x2F;2003&#x2F;jun&#x2F;feattongue</a><p>The Nagel question then, is the fact that I experience vision a certain way really an essential aspect of &quot;what it&#x27;s like to be me?&quot; Or is my consciousness a &quot;further fact&quot;... something running in the background of all my senses, no matter how they are wired (or rewired) over time? This is sometimes referred to as the &quot;hard problem&quot; of consciousness, summarized nicely in Wikipedia here:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Hard_problem_of_consciousness" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Hard_problem_of_consciousness</a>