What Is It Like to Be a Bat? Is There

question 19

Essay

What is it like to be a bat? Is there any way that you can know what it feels like to be a bat, or what a bat's experience feels like to the bat? If not, how much can you know, or how much can you empathize with, a bat or, in fact, any other living thing, including other human beings?    Alternatively, supposing that you were an intelligent bat, how could you communicate your experience to humans? If a bat could talk, would we (humans)be able to understand it? Construct an argument for your own viewpoint.   Develop at least two objections or counterarguments to your viewpoint and answer them. You can draw freely on resources in the chapter, but you're not limited to them. (You may want to consult David Foster Wallace's essay "Consider the Lobster," for example.)For "bat," you may substitute another name of a kind of being (including a human being), with permission from your professor.

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Definitions:

Advanced Directive

A legal document allowing individuals to outline their preferences for medical treatment in the event they cannot make decisions for themselves.

Emphysema

A lung condition characterized by damage to the alveoli (air sacs), leading to breathing difficulties and reduced oxygen exchange.

End Stages

The final phase of a disease or condition, where treatment is no longer effective, and palliative care is typically administered.

Irreversibility

A characteristic of preoperational reasoning in which a child does not understand that an action can be reversed and a thing restored to its original state.