In the first episode of 'Inside the Animal Mind' Chris Packham discussed dolphins and their sense of echolocation. He claimed that, "...the dolphin's echolocation is an extremely powerful sensory tool which allows its mind to build up a picture of the world" and then posed the kind of questions that philosophers are often tempted to ask:
"...what does a dolphin actually do, mentally? What does it think with all of that echolocation? Does it turn it into a visual image? We don't know. We may never know."
-- What is it like to be a dolphin?
There is something peculiar about these claims and questions. Packham suggests that perception is something that the mind does and that it involves forming mental pictures. But these presuppositions are questionable. The human sense of sight is not a sense that essentially involves forming 'visual' pictures in our mind. It is the sense which allows us to see things. It is possible to form mental images of things, and we might be prompted to form mental images of things by what we see, but then again we might not. Seeing things does not involve mental pictures at all.
Similarly the dolphin's sense of echolocation is the sense which allows it to echolocate things. It does not involve mental pictures of any sort - whether 'visual' or otherwise.
My mind does not perceive things and I do not use my mind to perceive things. I perceive things. - Similarly with dolphins.
If someone were to ask me 'what is it like for you to see things?' I would be a bit baffled and 'what is it like for a dolphin to echolocate things?' is similarly baffling.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03tcpjv/Inside_the_Animal_Mind_You_Are_What_You_Sense/
