What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]
I am increasingly of the opinion that the phrases &quot;what it is like to be a bat&quot;, or &quot;there is something it is like to be a bat&quot;, are simply a linguistic sleight of hand masking a plain old dualistic standpoint. Just because these sentences make sense in our everyday language, does not mean they are suitable for technical and rigorous philosophical discussions. For one, the &quot;something&quot; in the 2nd formulation (or simply the answer asked after by the 1st formulation) is most readily interpreted as an object, closing the door to any process-like interpretation of consciousness. Also, &quot;being like something&quot; is strictly a judgment made by a single subject regarding two experiences of that same subject, so it is not at all clear that this is a relation which can be validly posited to exist between two distinct subjects&#x27; experiences. I guess my point is I can easily imagine a complete physicalist explanation of consciousness which would still not lead to a valid answer of &quot;what is it like to be a bat&quot; due to quite obvious limitations of language or the plain invalidity of the question.<p>Edit: not to mention the reliance on a dummy pronoun: what is <i>it</i> like to be a bat - what is <i>what</i> like to be a bat?<p>Also, you&#x27;ll notice in many subsequent discussions that refer back to this paper there&#x27;s a strange reliance on repeating these exact formulations. If there really was some insight here it would be possible to phrase it in different ways.