The subjective character of experience is a term in psychology and the philosophy of mind denoting that all subjective phenomena are associated with a single point of view ("ego"). The term was coined and illuminated by Thomas Nagel in his famous paper What is It Like to Be a Bat?
Nagel argues that, because bats are apparently conscious mammals with a way of perceiving their environment entirely different from that of human beings, it is possible to speak of "what is it like to be a bat for the bat" or, while the example of the bat is particularly illustrative, any conscious species, as each organism has a unique point of view from which no other organism can gather experience. To Nagel the subjective character of experience implies the cognitive closure of the human mind to some facts, specifically the mental states that physical states create.
Read more about Subjective Character Of Experience: Subjective Reality, Dual-subjective Reality
Famous quotes containing the words subjective, character and/or experience:
“... the subjective viewpoint is the only one to use regarding a library. Your true library is a collection of the books you want. You may have deplorably poor taste or bad judgment. Never mind. Correct those traits before you exchange your books.”
—Carolyn Wells (1862–1942)
“Gentleness and delicacy of character are everywhere apparent in his verse. The simplest and humblest words come readily to his lips.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“And yet we constantly reclaim some part of that primal spontaneity through the youngest among us, not only through their sorrow and anger but simply through everyday discoveries, life unwrapped. To see a child touch the piano keys for the first time, to watch a small body slice through the surface of the water in a clean dive, is to experience the shock, not of the new, but of the familiar revisited as though it were strange and wonderful.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)