so then how can man know he is content being man if he cant know what it is like to be another species? Or in other words man is only man we have no other percspective on which to make observations and or draw conclusions. This is the flaw in your statement, "you may have wanted to be a mermaid", what you really longed to be was the human perception of what a mermaid is, but not truely a mermaid. This is the overall problem with man as a species as well. all we are and do is based on our perceptions of the universe theirfore it is impossible to draw a true conclusion on the true universe we can only draw conclusions on the universe we percive. It may be that man is the greatest species to be it may be the worst.