A Fascinating World

Imagine what it would be like to have been born on a planet in another galaxy to another race with its own history, physiology, and culture. In some ways it would be wildly strange, but in some ways it would have to be remarkably similar, given the universal requirements on rational animal life, but for that no less unsettlingly alien to anything you can imagine now. How fascinating it would be to explore such a world!

But for the experience to be complete, you could have no notion of what you know here and now, your present life. There would be no secondary world such as the one on which these imaginings implicitly depend. So the world you knew, the only one you would know, would seem utterly normal and complete in itself.

Now tell me this: how does the situation I've described differ from your own present situation?