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
What Is a Nation? to the reasons based on race, geography, history and so on. They argue that Renan maintains his intellectual background but subtly, i.e. the arguments he explicitly used in "What is a Nation?" are not consistent with his thinking. The concept of "daily plebiscite" would be ambiguous. They argue that the definition is an opportunist idealization and it should be interpreted within the Franco-Prussian War and in the midst of the dispute concerning the Alsace-Lorraine region. What Is a Nation? "What is a Nation?" ("Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?") is an 1882 lecture by French historian Ernest Renan (1823–1892), known for the statements