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are we humble enough to know how little we know?

Posted by kit on 2026-August-7 05:34:17, Friday
In reply to Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? posted by Manstuprator on 2026-August-6 16:48:40, Thursday



I fear that the relevant metaphor is not a ladder, but a fairground chamber of mirrors, where every way we look we see only our own distorted image glaring and gurning back at us.

There is a tendency to think that non-human animals are pets - mini-me's that run around in adorably stupid but ultimately relateable ways. I don't think this is true - not even of our domesticated pets, and certainly not of wild dolphins.

When we really dare to look at them, non-human animals are unheimlich, uncanny, jolting us out of superficial being-at-home in the world. Their presence shakes us violently from our complacency through the intrusion of their totally alien, their quasi-divine power. They are as un-homely as anything can be.

(Ten points to Diogenes for identifying the German philosopher I have been reading an awful lot of lately.)



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