I'm fascinated by the idea that the same creatures can live in the same universe and have very different experiences of it. Ants, cats, and humans are all going

I'm fascinated by the idea that the same creatures can live in the same universe and have very different experiences of it. Ants, cats, and humans are all going to perceive the same objects in very different ways. And only humans can understand what human-specific objects are for. A cat will see a book as a flat surface which probably smells of its owner and go to sleep on it. It has no other concept of "book." And if it sees an open book it can't see the contents as writing, because it has no concept of writing. The fascinating part is that a human will see the same object but perceive it very differently because of the added human-specific knowledge and cognition. Unless you're going to make the very bold claim that humans are the most sophisticated and advanced life in the universe, our perceptions will be limited in an analogous way. We see clouds of dust and gas, star systems, and random background noise. An intelligence a few million years ahead of us may see the same objects as [symbol] and [relationship] in ways we literally can't imagine.