Can we make a machine that does what a conscious human does? Getty Images
WHAT is it like to be a bat? Philosopher Thomas Nagel’s 1974 question has evolved to dominate our thinking on consciousness. Nagel’s point, simply put, is that even if we could fly, and navigate using sonar, we would never grasp what it feels like to be a bat. The argument has become the “hard problem” of consciousness, the intractability of explaining subjective experience. Consciousness isn’t something you can measure or weigh; its ethereal quality is so fascinating as to verge on the mystical. Certainly it…
