What's It Like to Be a Human?

Language philosopher Bry Willis critiques the common philosophical assumption that human consciousness is inherently more understandable than that of other species. While Thomas Nagel famously argued that we cannot truly know the internal experience of a bat, Willis contends that we possess no genuine first-person access to the minds of other people either. He argues that our perceived understanding of fellow humans is merely a well-calibrated model based on external observations and shared social conventions. This creates a deceptive illusion of proximity, leading us to mistake predictable outward behaviour for true insight into another’s subjective reality. Ultimately, the author suggests that the epistemic gap between individuals is just as vast as the gap between species, despite our habitual projections.👉 https://brywillis634737.substack.com/p/what-is-it-like-to-be-a-human