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
The purpose of a system is what it does or sheer ignorance of circumstances." The term is widely used by systems theorists. It is generally invoked to counter the notion that the purpose of a system can be read from the intentions of those who design, operate, or promote it. From a cybernetic perspective complex systems are not controllable by simple notions of management, and interventions in a system can best be understood by looking at how they affect observed system behavior. When "side effects" or "unintended consequences" reveal that system behavior is poorly understood, then taking the POSIWID perspective allows the more political understandings of system behavior to