Everybody Wants to Be a Cat
Thomas Nigel once wrote a paper, What Is It Like to Be a Bat, to explain the phenomenological experience.
As I’m writing this, my cat is prowling around deciding where to recline next: the beautiful life of a cat, no strings attached.
Descartes has no friends, no love, no heartbroken, no regrets.
Descartes doesn’t know how lucky he has been to have evolved from a single cell, to be given the chance to exist while there is life on earth still.
Descarte does not think, he doesn’t know he exists.
Descartes won’t know love, friendship, art, music, beauty, the sublime.
He won’t hear or make gossip, stories, poems.
Descarte won’t remember anything.
Nigel says I could never know of a cat’s perspective. Still, I feel like I have to drive a hard bargain into being a cat.
