One interesting thing I've tried to understand is emotions. They are deeply personal and deeply physical. It's hard to talk of strong emotions in ways that don

One interesting thing I've tried to understand is emotions. They are deeply personal and deeply physical. It's hard to talk of strong emotions in ways that don't reference the body's reactions along with those emotions. Emotions are tied to our physical bodies, chemistry, etc. We also know that animals have emotions. That they are mostly guided by emotion. But try to imagine emotions that, say, a sperm whale has, but that humans do not have. We know that the sperm whale has emotions outside of our own. They hunt at tremendous depth where the partial pressures of sodium and potassium change the chemistry of nerve conduction. We can try to think about the emotions that a hunting and hungry whale has in the abyssal darkness miles away from air. All attempts at it are just shoehorning our own emotions onto theirs though. Try feeling it, try having empathy with it. Who has any idea of the extra emotions that mammals with such radically different lives have, or what emotions they may lack. I may be a special case, but I just can't even imagine what a diving sperm whale is feeling. Emotions in other animals are something that we know must exist, do exist. But that we can have no real insight into. A forbidden box, outside of logic and our great minds, sleeping in a dog on the floor beside me.