What Is it Like to Be a Bat? perceptional experiences. While it is possible to imagine what it would be like to fly, navigate by sonar, hang upside down and eat insects like a bat, that is not the same as a bat's perspective. Nagel claims that even if humans were able to metamorphose gradually into bats, their brains would not have been wired as a bat's from birth; therefore, they would only be able to experience the life and behaviors of a bat, rather than the mindset. Such is the difference between subjective and objective points of view. According to Nagel, "our own mental activity is the
Who is a Jew? horse and a donkey, and in both unions the offspring are judged matrilineally. Second, the Tannaim may have been influenced by Roman law, which dictated that when a parent could not contract a legal marriage, offspring would follow the mother. However Leviticus 24:11, Ezra 9-10, and Nehemiah 13 seem to indicate that matrilineal descent was recognized and patrilineal descent was rejected in Biblical times as well. All Jewish religious movements agree that a person may be a Jew either by birth or through conversion. According to "halakha," a Jew by birth must be born to a Jewish mother. "Halakha" states