Understanding the Concept of Conscious Experience

Understanding the Concept of Conscious Experience Student’s Name University Affiliation Understanding the Concept of Conscious Experience The concept of conscious experience is a subject that has over the years brought more confusion than solution to the study of the concept conscious experience or the relation between mind and body. There is however a consensus that there exist an interaction between the mind and body of any organism despite the fact that they are separate. Using the mammal bat as an example, Thomas Nagel propounds an interesting argument of subjective character of experience to the effect that it is impossible to speak of what is it to be like a bat for the bat unless one is a bat. I agree with Nagel’s argument and nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, one cannot know how something is or how it feels to be something unless and until he becomes that thing which is it practically impossible. This paper will discuss the concept of conscious experience and the need to move from the subjective character of experience to an objective phenomenology not dependable on sympathy or imagination. As human being, our nature limits our understanding of certain things and the best we can do is to believe it based on our own imagination. This claim is attributed to the fact that it is only the individual who can explain their own internal state and the events going around them. This is based on their perception or feeling of the environment which though mental, ultimately results in physical activity or event. According to Nagel, we believe in existence of some things whose exact nature we cannot conceive. The truth of the matter is that there are humanly inaccessible facts. These are facts beyond human perception and the inability to access them is attributed to our structure. However, we can be compelled to recognize the existence of such facts without being able to state or comprehend them. Conscious mental states and events cause behavior and they may be given functional characterization. Mental events are physical events and this is...