This work offers the example of a person ignorant of insect metamorphosis who locks a caterpillar in a safe and later finds it has changed into a butterfly to show that a truth can be derived without full understanding.
This work offers the example of a person ignorant of insect metamorphosis who locks a caterpillar in a safe and later finds it has changed into a butterfly to show that a truth can be derived without full understanding. It claims that there are some facts inherently unknowable to humans, pointing out that if the world population was eradicated by the black plague before Cantor was born, transfinite numbers would still exist. This work argues that a Martian scientist might understand thunder and rainbows as objects but would never be able to understand human conceptions of thunder and rainbows. This essay was written by the author of The Possibility of Altruism, and analyzes the subjectivity of consciousness and experience by considering the unique "sensory apparatus" of a chiropter. FTP, name this 1974 essay by Thomas Nagel whose title asks about the mind of a certain flying mammal.
This work offers the example of a person ignorant of insect metamorphosis who locks a caterpillar in a safe and later finds it has changed into a butterfly to show that a truth can be derived without full understanding.
"What is it like to be a bat?"