Choose one of the following sets of questions and provide a thoughtful response to all of the sub-questions.
1) What does Nagel, in his article "What is it like to be a Bat?", think is the most important feature of mental phenomena? Is physicalism able to reduce this feature to a completely physical description? Why or why not? What parts of our mental lives are subjective? Do you think it is possible to reduce the subjective to the objective? Explain.
2) Why does Nagel choose to focus on bats? Why do people believe that bats have experience? What is the difference between imagining what it would be like for me to be a bat and trying to imagine what it is like for a bat to be a bat? What makes the latter impossible for humans? At the same time, what reasons do we have to believe that such experiences exist?
3) What are scientists doing when they try to give a more objective description of something? Why does this strategy seem particularly ill-suited for describing experiences? Do physicalists have an idea of what it means for the subjective to be objective? What suggestions does Nagel provide for approaching this problem?