He was at the brink of a new epistemological discovery. A technology had be invented to modulate the form of one species to another, although this left the temporal fixity of the Being to be metamorphed unstable, thus provided only a one way trip. Scientists, philosophers and individuals of certain political bents all had interests and even vested interests in this miracle of science. For the first time since the dawning of the perennial question, what had seemed impossible was now in our reach. We could now know the mind of the Other, know an experience of a creature other than ourselves. In a sense, we foresaw that we would no longer be alone in the universe, having discovered the experience and internal life of creatures that had been at our very doorstep since our conception. Some speculated that, with the plausibility of acquiring this knowledge, we could now transcend our own culture, our own physicality. Some others, who were less idealistic, claimed it would advance cognitive science. Some claimed that it would reveal the Truth. Others almost nihilistically claimed that we would gain nothing from such experiments (if they could even be called such at this point).

He was the first pilgrim on this voyage, knowing well the consequences of his choice to volunteer. A widely successful neuroscientist in the declining years of his life, his curiosity drove him to commit himself to the task…for what gain?

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Well past the point of no return, he is now at the threshold of a new mindset. This is the only point that exists in which a human being is capable of knowing the mind and subjective experience of a non-human animal---at the breaking point of his psyche---one self is fading away while the other surges forth. At this moment, the human that he was and the horse he will be both know each other; his thoughts are both at once, if, perhaps, he can be considered a single individual. The human self disintegrates into confusion, disassociating until it no longer is, while a new, instinctual and directed self coalesces and assumes its prominence. That brief flicker of true introspective knowledge, of knowing what a subjective self is through the opposition of juxtaposed consciousness, is the most ephemeral thing, and it is marked by a sudden horror, at least on the human side, that the knowledge will be obliterated the moment he is complete. Its light is so transient, and it occurs well past any hope of communication, that the transforming individual screams in utter distress. The moment is so fast, he even lacks the time to describe it to himself, fumbling over his diminishing vocabulary to detail an experience one could not convey, physically or metaphysically. Even in the midst of the call, the semantic content, his representation of that truly divine knowledge, has dispersed, and what was a scientist and philosopher has been entirely replaced by a horse. Of course, he is still himself…that is the point. He has not died, but has solidified into only one existence. With his new mindset and thought patterns, his framework if you will, he is now just as incapable of knowing the self as he was as human, though, perhaps, he no longer even asks the question.

To this, I ask, what is the value of knowledge? In a sense, with a case such as this, how can the “meaning of a good life” even make sense? Like hopeless pilgrims, for a moment, to behold the true face of God, god or gods and be, at once, turned to a pillar of salt. Our living becomes ignorance and our dying truth, we are left with no more answers than we had, only choices.