How to see like a bat

Every organism occupies its own unique sensory world, arising from the combination of sensory apparatuses it possesses. We can never truly know what it’s like to perceive the world through the “eyes” of another being.

Imagine being in the depths of a cave. You can hear the water dripping, feel slippery rock under your feet, and smell the guano. But you can’t see a thing. Your eyes can’t gather information in the total darkness of the cave. Where you suffer, though, other animals thrive.

In this same environment, cave-dwelling bats, spiders, salamanders, snails, and crickets have an entirely different experience. Their sensory apparatuses allow them to perceive details we cannot. These unique sensory experiences demonstrate a concept in biology called “umwelt.”

All sentient beings have an individual, subjective experience of their environment. You, me, and other humans – along with every cat, dog, snail, lizard, fish, or any other sentient being, for that matter – we are all subjects, the protagonists in our own stories. Our umwelt.

Each living being (or at least every human) sees its own reality as the “right” view. But this is just a mental bias. Just because we have a picture of the world in our brains, that doesn’t mean we have the most accurate picture of our environment.

What might we be missing?

Transcript and other resources: http://projectindra.org/apotheosis-podcast/episode-29-how-to-see-like-a-bat/