Inquiring Minds

Why You Can’t Know What It’s Like for a Bat to Be a Bat with Jackie Higgins

Feb 25, 2022

Jackie Higgins, author of Sentient: How Animals Illuminate the Wonder of Our Human Senses, explores the sensory experiences of various animals, highlighting our shared evolutionary history. The podcast discusses fascinating examples of animal senses, the relationship between our senses and the metaverse, the influence of Oliver Sacks' writings, and the incredible abilities of Ian Waterman, a butcher who lost his sense of proprioception.

36:02

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Episode guests

Jackie Higgins

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

Animals have their own unique sensory experiences that can illuminate our understanding of our own human senses.

The complexity of animal consciousness and subjective experiences poses challenges for scientists in fully comprehending them.

Deep dives

The Fascinating World of Animal Senses

This podcast episode explores the sensory experiences of various animals and how they illuminate our understanding of human senses. It delves into the incredible vision of the mantis shrimp with its multiple color senses, the sensory diversity of species like catfish that taste through their skin, and the extraordinary hearing abilities of the Goliath catfish and owls. The podcast also discusses the importance of touch and its impact on our mental health. It touches upon the scientific exploration of time perception in orb weaver spiders and the ongoing philosophical questions surrounding conscious awareness and sentience in animals.

Introduction

2min

Understanding Animal Experiences

18min

Understanding Different Senses and the Implications for the Metaverse

3min

Exploring the Influence of Oliver Sacks' Writings

2min

The Incredible Abilities of Ian Waterman

12min

Thanking the Guest and Shopify Ad

2min

We can never know what it’s like for a bat to be a bat. Or even if there is something that it is like for a bat to be a bat. But if there is something, we would speculate that the bat has some kind of consciousness or sentience. That’s the argument Jackie Higgins makes in her new book Sentient: How Animals Illuminate the Wonder of Our Human Senses, in which she takes us on a deep dive into the sensory experience of many different animals, from fish to owls, to moles, to cheetahs. Jackie is a television documentary director and writer. She read zoology at Oxford University as a student of Richard Dawkins and then worked for Oxford Scientific Films, where she spent a decade making wildlife films for the BBC, Channel 4, National Geographic, and The Discovery Channel. She then moved in-house at the BBC for another decade, working for their Science Department, researching, writing, directing, and producing films for many programs, from Horizon to Tomorrow’s World. Join Indre and Jackie today for their fascinating conversation regarding Jackie’s ‘joyful exploration of what it means to be human’.

https://inquiring.show/episodes/375-why-you-cant-know-what-its-like-for-a-bat-to-be-a-bat-with-jackie-higgins

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