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What is it like to be a bat?

(en.wikipedia.org)
180 points adityaathalye | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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mistidoi ◴[] No.45119208[source]
Somebody used this paper to make the term batfished, which they defined as being fooled into ascribing subjectivity to a non-sentient actor (i.e. an AI).

https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2025/06/30/what-is-it-like...

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HarHarVeryFunny ◴[] No.45121301[source]
Nagel's "What is it like to be a bat?" assumes that bats are conscious, and that the question of what is the subjective experience of being a bat (e.g. what does the sense of echolocation feel like) is therefore a meaningful question to ask.

The author inventing "batfished" also believes bats to be conscious, so it seems a very poorly conceived word, and anyways unnecessary since anthropomorphize works just fine... "You've just gaslighted yourself by anthropomorphizing the AI".

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TinkersW ◴[] No.45121791[source]
There isn't even a definitive definition of conscious, but you are somehow positive that bats don't possess it..
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HarHarVeryFunny ◴[] No.45122418[source]
You're right that it doesn't make any sense to talk about it without defining it, but I'd say that consciousness is based on your brain having access to parts of itself internally, not just the outside word, and that bats presumably do have it.
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1. markhahn ◴[] No.45123770{3}[source]
I find that people who complain about "defining" consciousness are, in fact, Mysterians who opposed the very idea of such a definition.

All we need to do (to talk about, to study it) is identify it. We need to be using the word to refer to the same thing. And there's nothing really hard about that.