RE: The problem of 'We' - a reflection on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas
The gap between us and other people is indeed of prime importance. I think about it more and more as I grow. To me it's very close to the problem of selfishness.
I wonder whether science will ever be able to resolve it, or ameliorate it, by somehow putting us in the shoes of another person (or being). To use an extreme example, suppose I give you drugs that will cause you to have a short depression so you get to understand what it feels like to be depressed.
I envisage such things happening in future schools! I don't know if this would be a form of education, or a form of torture, but I often think that knowing different feelings, with the aid of some machine strapped to our heads manipulating our brains somehow, will evolve us ethically, and maybe we can get closer to knowing 'what it is like to be a bat'!
I think that's more inclined toward encouraging empathy rather than awareness of the Other. While the two may overlap, they are not always the same entity. One can be empathetic but unconsciously disregard the Other's existence. One of the ways this can happen is with someone dealing with something and the person remarks that they know how the other feels. This is showing empathy, but forcing the Other into what the Self has experienced or knows.
Ha, yes, Nagel's paper is excellent on that, of course. And I won't say I have the answers to those issues.
But I think even with drugs or even Virtual Reality simulation, it is not possible to consider your perspective / experience / understanding the same as that of another person. This has to do with the fact that we are always already in the world, as Heidegger would say. And I would extend that to always-already-being-in-your-life/world. Knowledge and they way you see things add up, are not made in a void. And this is what scientific experimentation might forget.
Even if everybody reports the same things (even physical information etc), this doesn't mean it is the same. Okay, insert Deleuze here. (But I'll stop, before this becomes a lecture on contemporary philosophy ;) )