On the shared genetic memories between us, the cat and the fly | Aeon Essays

Whatever action I take, walking, eating and excreting, incurs a cost to other lives, whether by killing and eating them directly, or by eating foods that they could otherwise have lived on. The most extreme impact my life has on other species is extinction, not just of their physical presence, but also of their memories, both those acquired within ... See more

I need a greater facility with multispecies languages. I am engaging in a conversation across cultural divides with other multitudes, whose languages and modes of perception we have only just begun to explore.

If we can learn about human cognition, behaviour and pathology by studying insects, how does this blur the boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’?