I don't agree with Nagel, but I think Berns is missing his point. Nagel argues that experience itself its a different and independent form of knowledge only acquirable by the subject experiencing it. Experience manages to escape from the cold data scientific knowledge provides because of that point. Imagine if we could describe every aspect of a new discovered color (amount of nanometers present in its wavelenghts, how it affects the different photoreceptors of each animal that encounters it, which part of electromagnetic waves it absorbs and which ones it reflects, etc.) then we would theoretically know this color, every component that shapes it, but we still wouldn't get the effect, this new and different type of knowledge that Nagel was refering to, that we'd get if we saw the color, if we experience it. So if neuroscience can tell us how is like to be an animal, Nagel would just respond that that knowledge only describes what it is to be an animal but we could only get how it is to be an animal if we were that animal in question, which is a new form of knowledge itself that science cannot essentially reach.
smallusdiccus t1_ja9sw5a wrote
Reply to Neuroscientist Gregory Berns argues that Thomas Nagel was wrong: neuroscience can give us knowledge about what it is like to be an animal. For example, his own fMRI studies on dogs have shown that they can feel genuine affection for their owners. by Ma3Ke4Li3
I don't agree with Nagel, but I think Berns is missing his point. Nagel argues that experience itself its a different and independent form of knowledge only acquirable by the subject experiencing it. Experience manages to escape from the cold data scientific knowledge provides because of that point. Imagine if we could describe every aspect of a new discovered color (amount of nanometers present in its wavelenghts, how it affects the different photoreceptors of each animal that encounters it, which part of electromagnetic waves it absorbs and which ones it reflects, etc.) then we would theoretically know this color, every component that shapes it, but we still wouldn't get the effect, this new and different type of knowledge that Nagel was refering to, that we'd get if we saw the color, if we experience it. So if neuroscience can tell us how is like to be an animal, Nagel would just respond that that knowledge only describes what it is to be an animal but we could only get how it is to be an animal if we were that animal in question, which is a new form of knowledge itself that science cannot essentially reach.