Perhaps people who experience the world in ways that are considered atypical have an intuitive feeling for the limits of typicality.

A scientist’s explanations about other animals are dictated by the data she collects, which are influenced by the questions she asks, which are steered by her imagination, which is delimited by her senses. The boundaries of the human Umwelt often make the Umwelten of others opaque to us.

“No robot is as sophisticated as an insect.” Her point is that insect nervous systems have evolved to pull off complex behaviors in the simplest possible ways, and robots show us how simple it is possible to be. If we can program them to accomplish all the adaptive actions that pain supposedly enables without also programming them with consciousnes

Sensing can feel passive, as if eyes and other sense organs were intake valves through which animals absorb and receive the stimuli around them. But over time, the simple act of seeing recolors the world. Guided by evolution, eyes are living paintbrushes. Flowers, frogs, fish, feathers, and fruit all show that sight affects what is seen, and that m

as Nagel predicted. But there is value and glory in the striving. On this journey through nature’s Umwelten, our intuitions will be our biggest liabilities, and our imaginations will be our greatest assets.

That direct connection to the natural vibratory world may be in decline, but a different vibroscape has arisen. Modern cellphones buzz against our skin and fingertips, alerting us of breaking news, upcoming events, and social attention. Our devices use vibrations to connect us to the world beyond our bodies, extending our Umwelt beyond the reach of

For him, to sit or lie upon the ground is to be able to think more deeply and to feel more keenly; he can see more clearly into the mysteries of life and come closer in kinship to other lives about him. The earth was full of sounds which the old-time Indian could hear, sometimes putting his ear to it so as to hear more clearly.”

Taste is reflexive and innate, while smell is not.

Nothing can sense everything, and nothing needs to. That is why Umwelten exist at all. It is also why the act of contemplating the Umwelt of another creature is so deeply human and so utterly profound. Our senses filter in what we need. We must choose to learn about the rest.