What is it like to be a bat?

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...

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".

There isn't even a definitive definition of conscious, but you are somehow positive that bats don't possess it..

Consciousness is awareness of yourself, and then the ability to look at yourself and decide to make a change.

Someone conscious is able to choose how they want to behave and then behave that way. For example I can choose to be kind or mean. I can choose to learn to skate or I choose not to.

So free will and consciousness are strongly linked.

I have seen zero evidence that any other being other than humans can do this. All other animals have behaviors that are directly shaped by their environment, physical needs, and genetic temperament, and not at all shaped by choices.

For example a dog that likes to play with children simply likes them, it did not choose to like them. I on the other hand can sit, think, and decide if I like kids or not.

(This does not imply that all choices made by humans are conscious - in fact most are not, it just means that humans can do that.)

Some animals show choices - see e.g. the mirror test.

On the other hand, I bet you can't prove that you ever made a free choice.

You are simultaneously claiming you can prove an animal made a choice, but I didn't? That's a contradiction.

In any case, a mirror test is a test of recognizing self, it does not indicate anything in terms of self awareness.

And I chose to fast for 5 days because I wanted to. Nothing forced me, it was a free choice. I simply thought about it and decided to do it, there were no pro's or con's pushing me in either direction.

> Some animals show choices

They said animals show choices, they did not claim to prove animals made a choice. The point is that you also cannot prove you made a choice, only that you do things that show you may have made a choice. It's a fine, but important, distinction.

Did I, or did I not, have the option to fast, or not to fast?

Did I then pick one? How is that not proof of a choice? Who or what else made that choice if not me?

If you poke me with a needle, I move, that is not a choice because it's a forced choice, that's essentially what animals do, all their choices are forced.

That's also what free will is, free will is not a choice between a good and bad options - that's not a choice. Free will is picking between two options that are equal, and yet different (i.e. not something where before options are more or less the same, like go left or right more or less randomly).

Free will is only rarely exercised in life, most choices are forced or random.

> They said animals show choices

Given what I wrote, do they actually show choices? Or do they just pick between good/bad or two equal options?